


The Swan Song

by MotherGoddamn



Series: The Noir Series [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Noir, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-11-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 00:49:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherGoddamn/pseuds/MotherGoddamn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A familiar face walks into Blaine Anderson’s office with a new job. April Rhodes, a Hollywood B Movie starlet, is being stalked. Simple enough case. But the past isn't finished with Blaine yet. [Sequel to The Lost Nightingale.1940's noir-style AU.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There was a ghost in my doorway. She stood five foot five with brown curls spilling over her bare shoulders and a bright red gash for a mouth. Her legs ended in a pair of diamond earrings. They were real. So was she.  
  
“Hello, Glamour.” I said, my finger circling the rim of my scotch. “Nice to catch you between husbands.” I motioned to the seat in front of my desk and gave the apparition a tight smile.  
  
“You're starting early, Anderson,” she said, draping her fur over the back of the chair and sitting down neatly.   
  
“Breakfast.”  
  
“You missed that by a few hours.”  
  
“Brunch then. Now you didn't come here to tell me the time. I'm a big boy now.” She snorted. “I can do that on my own.” Placing my palms flat on the desk, I drank her in slowly. It had been a long time. “What are you doing in here, Santana?”  
  
“Your secretary, Ms. Pillsbury, showed me in. Charming thing. Lovely teeth. Did you buy them?”  
  
“I was thinking further back than five minutes ago.”  
  
“She seems a sweet kid,” she said, ignoring me. “Too sweet for this bitter town.” She lit up a cigarette and blew the smoke towards me. “Too sweet for  _you_. When did you get so high class that you needed a dame running after you?”  
  
I shrugged “She seems to like it. Who am I to stand in the way of someone’s happiness?”  
  
Dark eyes watched me solemnly. “You never seemed to mind when it was your own.”  
  
“Nor you.” She nodded at that, looking down at her hand that was splayed across her thigh. Her ring finger hadn’t even celebrated with a tan mark this time. Five years stretched out in the space between us, crawling by like dying snails. I saw a flash of cornflower blue, and I pushed it away.   
  
“You ever hear from him?” Her voice was lower than the shadow of a snake. “The kid?”  
  
My right hand moved unconsciously to the side. Above the drawer where his letters remained unopened. I felt the heat of want through the wood, neat and scorching my palm. “Santana,” I warned.   
  
“Kurt, wasn’t it?”  
  
“Don't.” I hated her for a moment. How easy and clean she could say the name. Smooth as an infant's resume. When in  _my_  throat it curled and twisted, refusing to budge. Choking me. “Let it be. He's better off in the past, Santana. It's safer there.”  
  
“I think you are forgetting the pasts we have. Nothing is safe there.”  
  
“I’m just glad you finally found a casting couch that you found comfortable.” I tried to change the subject. “I went to see you in that science fiction piece last week. It was--- different.”  
  
“It was terrible, Anderson. I had to strangle myself with a damn dead snake. The thing died before we had even finished the scene. This is what I get while Berry gets the blockbusters. Did you know she is filming with Bogart soon? Bogart! She can’t even act!”  
  
“Hey now,” I rested my chin on my palms. “I like her movies. They’re sweet.”  
  
“You would. You’re their target audience. I bet you wept like a child while eating chocolate and cuddling into your jacket.”  
  
“Are you following me?”  
  
“God knows why you like romance so much. It’s hardly your field of expertise, is it?” She looked up a smile half frozen on her face. “I mean---“  
  
“It’s okay.” I held up a hand, suddenly sobered. “Let’s cut to the chase. Why are you here?”  
  
“And you wonder why I don't make social calls.” She leaned back in the chair. “I think I've got you another case.”  
  
“You don't say? Getting to be a regular gig with you. I’m practically swimming in the green.”  
  
“Sounds a nice way to bathe.”  
  
“It's a dirty way. And the stench doesn't come off easy.”  
  
“That's why they invented perfume.” She flicked ash onto the floor. I didn't mind. It would have company down there. “It's my co-star. April Rhodes. She was in that B Movie with Lancaster awhile back? She's no Kate Hepburn, but she'll do, I suppose.” She took a long drag and looked thoughtful. “Well, at the moment we are both on loan to Warners for a new film. Terrible pot boiler thing, of course. It's not going to set the cinemas alight but it's one under the belt. I play a ruthless, husband stealing bitch.”  
  
“Documentary, is it?”  
  
“I forgot about that wit. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder, doesn't it? Anyway, last week April comes to me in tears. She's been receiving letters. A real creep by the sound of them.” She shrugged and picked at imaginary lint on her skirt. “It happens in this business; you get used to it. So she puts them away in a drawer and forgets about them.” She eyed my hand narrowly as she talked. “Until she starts being followed.”  
  
“Followed?”  
  
“Same man every night. He follows her from the set to the hotel. She goes out for a meal, she sees him steeling around bus boys. She goes out dancing, and it's his face in the crowd.”  
  
“You think they are connected?  
  
“I think it's worth looking into. I think it's worth  _you_  looking into.”  
  
“I'd need to speak to this Rhodes before I agree to anything. I got high standards now. Sometimes I even live up to them.”  
  
“She's here with me. I thought I'd best take you for a test drive before letting the girl in. Not everyone is used to your new brand of charm.”  
  
“If only they could bottle it.”  
  
She frowned. “What happened to you, Anderson? You were always such a nice boy. Too nice. A damn near saint. And now this.” She gestured at the half empty bottle. “When it’s barely midday. What the hell did that Hummel kid do to you?”  
  
“Santana.” There was a plea in my voice. Weak and broken. “Please.”  
  
She released a sigh and nodded. Stubbing her cigarette out on my desk, she rose and crossed the room, her heels sounding smartly against the ground as she opened the door. “April? Come on in.”  
  
A petite blonde entered the office. All eyes and curves with a jaunt like jelly riding coach on a diesel train. It must have taken her years to perfect it. Today she was beautiful, but ten years from now she'd be wishing it was ten years ago. A spark of recognition flared. Not the Lancaster movie. No, it was something else. I wasn't one for the pictures, but I made it my business to keep up to date with the Parsons and Hoppers of the world. You never knew when that guff would come in handy. That must be where I knew this dame from.  
  
“Mr. Anderson,” she breathed.  
  
“Ms. Rhodes,” I breathed back.  
  
“Please call me April, sugar. Almost everybody does.” Taking a seat she smiled and crossed her legs. She knew they were good. She leaned forward. She knew they were good, too. “You probably know me from the movies?”  
  
“And me without my autograph book.” She giggled and clasped a hand to her bosom and blinked as rapidly as an old woman's window blind. Santana smirked at me from her side. “I hear you're being followed? You've been getting notes?”  
  
“Oh, vile things, Mr. Anderson! Such terrible, unrepeatable things!”  
  
“Blaine,” I offered. “These unrepeatable things? Care to repeat them?”  
  
“Well, I---” She bit a knuckle and tears ran onto the stage and grabbed the mic. “They say the things they want to do to my---person.”  
  
“I can only imagine. Do you have any enemies? Lovers gone sour? You owe anyone dough?”  
  
“No, no! Nothing like that!” she gasped in her little girl voice. “Santana says you can help? Can you, Mr. Anderson? I so desperately need help.” Her lower lip wavered and she covered her face in her hands. Santana's eyes rolled. Mine joined them.  
  
“Ms. Rhodes. April.” I said. “You don’t need to screen test for me.”  
  
“What? I don't---I don't know what you mean?”  
  
“I mean if you were Montgomery Clift in that chair, then this little routine might be having some effect. You're not, and it isn't. So how about you just tell me the facts?” Santana’s eyes widened at my rudeness and I pushed it away. That was the old Blaine. She had to see he was no longer in residence sometime.  
  
April, meanwhile, looked like she had swallowed the moon. “Well ain’t you the little spitfire! Some way to talk to someone who just wants a little help.”  
  
“The facts, April. That’s all I’m interested in.”   
  
I saw a flash of steel in her blue eyes. “Sure thing, dreamboat. Whatever you say.” She smoothed a palm down her leg. “It started about a month ago. At first I thought it was a coincidence, but then I began seeing this man everywhere I went. I'd see him when I left for the set. I'd see him when I got in of an evening. He was always there.  _Is_  always there.”  
  
“What does this guy look like?”  
  
“He's a Jew. He wears that---what do you call it? The orthodox stuff? The black and the hat with those little curls at the side of his head?” She made a wavy gesture with her finger at her temple. “And those small hats?” Hell, it was a wonder that the guy didn't hold up the Talmud whenever he saw her.  
  
“I sincerely doubt you're being stalked by a Rabbi, Ms. Rhodes.” I held up a hand, stopping her correcting the name or from being insulted. I didn't know. I didn't care. “When did the letters start?”  
  
“A few weeks after I first saw him. They were sweet at first. Romantic. But then they began getting nasty. Accusing me of committing acts with my co-stars. Nasty, seedy little lies. He thought I had betrayed him.” A sob burst from her, and her face dropped into her palms. “I just want him to go away, Blaine! I want to stop jumping at my own shadow!” I watched her cry. Santana watched me watch.  
  
“I'll take the case,” I said at last. Mainly for something to be saying. She looked up. Her face bone dry. “I'll see you on set tomorrow. Get my name on the door. I want to get a make on everyone you speak to on a daily basis. From the director to the caterer. Put my name on the list. Then we'll stick a tail on you. See who has the scent.”  
  
“Thank you, Blaine,” she said, stiffly. She stood up, and Santana followed. She stuck a hand out to me, and I looked at it. It was a pretty hand. I looked it over fine. “Real nice guy!” With a cute nose in the air, she spun on her heel and walked out in her wavering, languid fashion.  
  
“It's best to give her a head start,” Santana said, turning toward me.  
  
“Maybe we should have a game of cards. You can catch up to her in the lobby in about an hour.”  
  
“With you? You always chisel me.”  
  
“What can I say? You rubbed off.”  
  
She laughed and stared down at me. “It was good to see you, Anderson.” She stuck out her hand like April. It was just as pretty, and I knew this time I couldn't avoid it. I clasped it quickly but she saw. I should have known that nothing escaped Santana. “Anderson! Your hand! How long has it shook like that?”  
  
“It's just nerves. You're a big Hollywood star after all.”  
  
“Don't kid a kidder. It's the drink, isn't it?” Her eyes were round and accusing. Mine were small and south.  
  
“I'll see you, tomorrow, Frail,” I said in a final voice. She was very kind. She didn't press.  
  
“Okay. If that's the way you want it. I'll see you then.” She stopped at the door and tilted her head at me. “It was good to see you,” she repeated, her voice soft.  
  
I nodded and watched her leave. After awhile I opened my drawer and stared down at all that unopened white. I closed it again, hard. The bottle tottered from the table and leapt from the edge.  
  
I never heard the shatter of glass.  
  


* * *

  
  
I spent the drive home with my mind on the past and the car nearly on the damn sidewalk. I thought about the envelopes tucked into the inside pocket of my jacket. Unopened, unknown and comforting. It had been three or four months since I'd last read his words to me. Always written in his neat little print. His penmanship was so concentrated that with each letter he would leave a deep probing indent. After committing the words to memory, I'd glide my fingertips over the backs of the pages, like a blind man reading Holy Scripture. It had been three or four months since I'd last picked up my own pen and scrawled something back. Better that way. Cleaner.   
  
Headlights snapped into play in my rear-view. April Rhodes wasn't the only one in town with an ardent admirer. A red coupé that had been following me on and off for the past week. It was loud and it was brassy, an amateur for sure. A professional wouldn't climb in my pocket and count the change like this. I sat back with a sigh ready for another game of Follow the Leader. Whoever this Joe was, he was all tease and no release, and I was getting a little weary of the action.   
  
If this chump was going to follow me, I may as well make it worth his while. I drove down three or four blocks I had no business going down, and my shadow held on tight. I doubled back on myself twice. I ran a few red lights and took a few dark corners. I drove around like this for what felt like hours. So many circles my car got dizzy. As I neared my apartment, I gave the rear-view a longing glance. The mirror got clear and stayed clear. Looks like my date had skipped out early. And we hadn't even made it to second base.   
  
I pulled up outside my place and waited. No little red coupé. No little stalkers. I got out and shut the door. I looked both ways, crossed the street and went into my building.  
  
It was late. Time had got away from me like trash in the wind. Time had a way of doing that of late. I trudged up the steps, a shaking hand pressed against my chest. Pushing his unread words into my heart with every flutter. I heard a slight sigh above and froze. There was a shadow at the top of the stairs. Mr Red Coupé?  
  
"Something I can help you with, Brother?" I called out, as my left hand encircled the butt of my Colt.48. It wasn't my best shot but if I employed the right I was more liable to plug myself in the back of the head. I took the rest of the stairs slowly, my eyes trained to mass of black. "You hear me?"  
  
The shadow stepped forward. The shadow said my name. There were too many ghosts in my doorway.  
  
He fell forward, and I caught him in my arms. He stared up at me with his eyes half lidded and what looked like a bright, drunken smile. I knew better. I pulled him up by the armpits and rested him against the wall, feeling all over his body for wounds.  
  
“It'll be okay! It'll be okay!” said my voice from another room in another town. I tore my eyes away from the blue staring into me and looked at the colour staining my hands.  
  
Red. The colour of blood. And Kurt Hummel was covered in it.


	2. Chapter 2

Fumbling for my keys, I grabbed him around the waist and dragged him inside. “Kurt, wake up. Wake up!” I gently lowered him onto the couch and not so gently slapped his face. “I’m going to call an ambulance--”  
  
“No, no--” he murmured, pushing himself upward with a groan. “ s’not mine...”  
  
“Don’t be a fool . You’re hurt!”  
  
“No. It’s--” He grabbed his head as if to force the words out. “It’s not my blood.”  
  
"What do you mean? Whose is it?" My hand clutched at the back of his head, nails twisting in his hair. For once it wasn't shaking.  
  
"A man. He attacked me. I defended myself." He stared into my face and I got the message. Somewhere in LA was a body bleeding into a gutter. Very lonely. Very dead.  
  
"Why did he attack you?" There were other questions. A million. But these had to come first. The heat of his thigh against my stomach felt like hot coffee against palms in winter.  
  
"I was following him."  
  
"Why were you--?"   
  
"He was following  _you_. He has been for this past week. I gave myself away. Wait!" He patted at his chest and then stared up at me with wide eyes, looked around and sank back into the pillows in disappointment. "My wallet. It's back there. With him."  
  
"Wait. You've been back a week?"   
  
"Two. I wrote to you. I told you! Why didn't you reply?" I still didn't reply. Just gripped his wrist tight. "Why did you stop writing to me, Blaine? It’s been months. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead!"  
  
"No, not yet." I muttered.   
  
"I wanted to see you. But--I didn't know if you wanted to see me. So, I don’t know. I began to follow you. Pretty soon I noticed I had company."  
  
“I think I know the company you mean. I’ve spotted it a few times. I lost it Downtown earlier tonight.”  
  
“A red coupe?”  
  
“As red as Chaplin.”  
  
His other hand curled round mine, feather touches over the knuckles. "I began to follow him instead. He watched you all the time. Went wherever you did. And tonight--he must have made me. I lost him so I pulled over, just to get my bearings. Decide whether to give up for the night? The next thing I knew my door was being pulled open and I was eating sidewalk and being introduced to a toe cap." He touched the cut above his eyebrow gingerly. "He was a lot bigger than me, but I stood my ground. I fought back well enough but then he got out the knife--"  
  
I nodded. I knew the rest. I'd read that book before. We fell into a silence and looked at each other. At what five years had done to us both. He was thinner in the face, and age had entered his eyes. The boy was leaving him. God knows what he saw on my screen.  
  
"What did you do with the body?"  
  
"I dragged it into an alley. Covered it in boxes." He clutched at his hair in frustration. "Blaine! The wallet, I must have lost it in the struggle."  
  
"Here," I tore some paper from the notepad on my desk, pushing it and a pen towards him. "I need the street. Where you left It. Be exact."  
  
"We can't go back!" He took them gently, and chewed on a plump pink lip. Too focused on my face to see that the tremor had returned. "We can't take the risk!"   
  
"You're right. We can't. But I can. You've stuck a calling card on the stiff and it needs to go. Even dark alleys get light once in awhile.” I shoved my hands into my pockets and turned my back. "We need to get you cleaned up and back on the train. Go back to your safe little life in safe little Ohio."  
  
"I'm not going anywhere! Weren't you listening? You're being followed! What kind of trouble are you in?"  
  
I didn’t know. But I knew whatever it was I didn’t want him involved. "Every fox and hound in this town is going to be looking for you, Kurt. You need to make dust and make it fast." I stared at the wall and heard him sigh. He sighed again and then came the sound of the pen scribbling out the directions. An ache began in my temple and I rubbed it absently, the gentle scratching of the nib on paper running through me like a live wire in the rain.  
  
“At least let me come with you.”  
  
“No.” I told the wall.  
  
"But you need me!"  
  
"I don't need you!" I rounded on him and the hurt in his face felt like a slap. "I don't."  
  
“Blaine--”  
  
“Look. We can go round like this all day but there’s a body out on the streets getting colder and who knows what else you left behind. Probably a map and a compass. Come on.” I placed his arm around my shoulders and hoisted him up. We made our way to the bathroom, his left leg giving a little kick out with each step, swinging the foot in a shallow arc.  _It must have been hurt in the fight._  I thought, while trying not to like the way he hung on me like a too large suit. "We'll get you cleaned up and then I'll take you to the station ." He nodded in response and I lowered him onto the toilet seat.  
  
“Let me just clear this up--” I turned from him and began to sweep the debris from the bath. “It’s the maid’s night off.”  
  
"You keep bottles of Scotch in the tub?" he asked, as I placed the bottles on the floor.   
  
"It saves me getting out of the shower." I tested a hand against the spray. Warm. Inviting. Like the boy behind me. "Okay, do you need help to--" I turned and he smiled slowly, knowingly. And I realised that I'd worked myself into a corner.   
  
He slipped the bloodied jacket from his shoulders to the floor. Slowly his slender hands came to the front and he began to pop the shirt buttons. His eyes never left mine. I swallowed. He wore no undershirt.  
  
"Kurt--"  
  
"Blaine?" He rose unsteadily to his feet and indicated his trousers. "A little help?"  
  
Hands like cement I unzipped his pants and helped him out of them. My fingers brushed against the faint blonde hairs on his thigh. Faintly, I remembered what the sensation of them was like on my tongue. I pushed it away. As the shower’s steam filled the room, I looked up. He looked down. We met in the middle. Our fingers touched as we pushed his boxers down.  
  
"I'm too weak. I'm not going to be able to stand in there alone." His voice was as sickly sweet as ice cream in June. I wondered what kind of education he’d been receiving in Ohio to get a smirk like that. The jealousy tore around my insides.  
  
"No. No. I guess not." I cursed myself for not being stronger.  
  
Kurt’s hands went to the lapels of my jacket and he had it shucked off my shoulders before I could protest. It hit the dingy tiles about the same time he hit the toilet seat again. As he sat, he hooked bloodstained fingers in my belt loops, drawing me close to him.  
  
“What are you doing?” I winced internally. There was a sterling question for a detective to ask.  
  
“Returning the favour .” He was smirking again and there was a small gleam like stolen silverware in his eyes.  
  
I didn’t bother to reply as his hands worked on my belt. Just sighed and tugged my shirt out from the waist of my slacks. I didn’t bother with the all those damned buttons either, pulling shirt and undershirt off together and dropping them on top of my jacket.  
  
Kurt added my belt to the pile then rested his warm, slightly damp hands on the hipbones exposed by my sagging trousers. I felt their weight and the weight of his gaze as I looked down. Whatever twinkle had been in his baby blues was gone now as his eyes moved over my torso, taking in five years of damage.  
  
“This isn’t a West Hollywood peep show.” The tremor in my voice gave me away.   
  
“Thank God!” His mouth moved in a sad parody of his earlier grin. His hands resumed their work. “If it was, I wouldn’t be allowed to touch.”  
  
“What makes you think you’re allowed to here?”  
  
It was his turn to skip answers. Instead, he slipped his hands in the open front of my slacks to the waistband of my underwear, one each front and back. The slide of his fingers sent my loose trousers falling to the floor and a stab of desire down to my groin. With a soft growl I batted his hands away from me and swiftly pulled my briefs down myself. Feeling again his intense blue gaze, I removed socks, slacks, and underwear and tossed them onto the pile in one rumpled ball.  
  
“Okay. Let’s get this over with.” I held a hand out to him and he took it without a word. We got him on his feet and, with his arm slung over my shoulder again, to the bathtub. I stepped into it first, the shower’s weak spray missing me entirely. Kurt followed me, lifting a shaky leg over the rim. When he followed it with the other, he slipped on the wet floor of the tub and, unable to recover his footing, fell heavily against me.  
  
I caught him, feeling the now healthy weight of him in my arms, and his almost unhealthy warmth pressed all against me. His breath wisped across my collarbone like a moist summer breeze off the ocean.  
  
“Blaine?” He put layers of questions into my name. More than I could identify. There was no doubt, though, that one of them was about the stirring in my groin. There couldn’t be any doubt with it pressing into his stomach.  
  
“What do you expect, leading with your bum leg?” I growled, hauling him back to his feet before pushing him away a few inches. The harshness of my voice could as easily be from anger as another cause.  
  
“Blaine.” The soft, insistent pleading in his voice drew my escaping gaze back to him. “Thank you.” He leaned toward me, lips seeking mine.  
  
I turned my face to the side and pushed him under the shower’s spray. “You smell like blood.” If there were no other barriers between us, I’d make one of words. “Soap’s on the sink.”  
  
Hi eyebrows rose in confusion at my harsh tone. “Blaine, I can’t wash myself like this.” I turned back to him, eyes narrowed. “I can’t hold onto you and wash at the same time.”  
  
“Fine,” I ground out, reaching over to the sink and snatching the soap as Kurt wrapped his arms around my neck. I rubbed the bar between my hands until I’d built up a good lather. I tossed it back, landing it in the sink rather than on. “Lean your head back.” Our current position meant that I had to step closer to him and reach around his shoulders and up to wash his hair. “Close your eyes,” I told him as I started working the soap into his hair and scalp.  
  
“Why?” That irritatingly alluring twinkle was back in his eyes.  
  
 _That’s why_. Our faces were far too close together. “Do you want soap in them?”   
  
He bit his lip, words held back. With a nod he closed his lids. Free of his scrutiny, I scrubbed as best I could at his head, working at the bloodstains here and there. Even with his intense blue eyes closed, I found it hard to concentrate on my task. Every move pressed our arms together like an embrace. Every shift of his body rubbed it against my own. It was impossible to ignore. I felt the heat pooling in my groin, hotter than the sun on the Santa Monica pier.   
  
Suddenly, he hissed in pain as the soap got into the cut on his brow. He shifted against me, pressing an answering heat against my own.  
  
“Stop that,” I tried to growl, but there was no strength in my voice. Just as there was no strength in my hand when I tried to pull his head back sharply under the shower. In the end, I had to step with him until his head was fully under the warm spray. I watched as the water ran down his face and neck in rivulets, their colours shifting gradually from red to pink to clear. As I ran my hands weakly through his hair to make sure it was all clean, Kurt opened his eyes. He tilted his head forward and smiled at me. It was different from his earlier ones; softer, warmer.  
  
“Blaine,” he whispered, drawing closer, lips parted. At the last moment, I turned my face away. With a sigh, he pressed his lips against my jaw. In front of my ear. Below my ear.   
  
“Stop that.” It was even weaker than before. Pathetic . I kept my gaze studiously on the tiles behind him. They were pale green. They might have looked as bright and warm as spring grass on the Hollywood Hills once. Now, with the grout black with mildew, they just looked dark and sickly.  
  
 _Fitting,_  I tried to ignore the feel of Kurt’s lips brushing against my neck. The feel of his body in my arms after all these years.   
  
Impossible with his hands making sensuous circles on my back and his growing heat and hardness rubbing insistently against my own as he started to rock against me.  
  
It would be so easy. So much easier.  
  
I don’t do easy. Not anymore.  
  
“Enough!” I snapped pulling his arms off and myself away. I stepped out of the tub and to the towel rack, back turned resolutely to him. I gripped the rusted metal of the rack and tried to will my arousal away.  
  
“Blaine,  _please.”_  “What is it? What did I do wrong?”  
  
 _You came back,_  I thought as I made a show of ignoring him. Until I heard a thump and a small moan behind me. I turned back to find Kurt half fallen on the floor in front of the tub.  
  
“Damn fool,” I sighed and moved back to him. I held out my right hand. It shook.   
  
He stared at it for a moment, then looked up at me. I looked back. We played another game of tag with our eyes, until he gave it up and grabbed my wrist. But instead of pulling  _himself_  up, he pulled  _me_  down. With what must have been just about the last of his strength, he tugged me to the floor, turned me around, and straddled my thighs.  
  
There we were. Me on the damp tiles with my back pushed against the bathtub and Kurt in my lap, breathing hard. His hands gripped either side of my face and his elbows pressed into my ribcage.  
  
Angry words died in my throat at the fiery intensity in his gaze. His eyes bored into mine for long moments. His thumbs moved to brush the newly born crow’s feet at the corners of my eyes. His gaze shifted then, tracing, along with his fingers, every last crease.   
  
Reading them like headlines on the front page.   
  
“ _It’s been three months,_  Blaine. Why did you stop writing?”  
  
Burned and battered, my walls gave way. “It was better that way.”  
  
“Better how?” I shook my head and tried to break our locked gaze. But he held me firm. “What is it? Please tell me.” I shook my head again and he let loose a frustrated curse, his grip tightening as he pulled my mouth against his. He held our lips together as he turned his head, kissing me again and again as he rocked his hips against me. “Every day,” he breathed against my lips before running his tongue lightly across them. “I’ve thought of you.”  
  
I lost the battle and answered him with a deep kiss of my own, nipping softly at his lips before tangling my tongue with his. One hand slid down his back to pull him even more tightly against me. The other went to tangle in his wet hair. He withdrew one of his own from my face to grip that hand. Slowly, inexorably, he drew them down to where our arousals pressed and throbbed against one another.  
  
“Touch me,” he said into our kiss.  
  
I reached down, taking his erection in his hand, my mind had replayed the night at Pavarotti’s every hour for the last five years and here we were again. But my fingers refused to bring more than a teasing pressure to bear. They shook rather than stroked. I cursed under my breath and closed my eyes. “Kurt, I’m sorry, I--”  
  
“Shh--” Kurt breathed against my ear. He released my face completely and covered my shaking hand with his own steady one. He moved our joint hands over his arousal at the same time his other stroked mine. My cheek rested against his, the wet skin cool and comforting against my flesh. It had been so long.   
  
I squeezed my eyes shut as pleasure shot through my body, and left me a loose wreck in his arms, my palm resting on the lovely ridge of his hip bone as I crushed him into me. As his heartbeat came down, I planted kisses alongside the slick feel of his neck.  
  
He’d come back.  
  
And I wished with all my heart that he had stayed the hell away.


	3. Chapter 3

Why the hell had he come back now? Everything had been fine. No. Not fine. Never fine, but there had been an order at the least. Christ, if there was one thing I needed right now, it was order. Five minutes back in the joint and he'd already rubbed out a goon and the message was bound to be flowing through the underground. Kurt Hummel was back in town.  
  
I wanted to board the doors and windows and keep him in this nice, musty smelling room with me. Keep him safe. But he couldn't be. Not when the danger was locked in with him. I may be a two bit heel. A cheap shamus with a cliché drinking problem and a shaking paw but that didn't mean I'd hurt him. Not him.  
  
He moaned in his sleep, waking himself in the process. My hand gripped my knee to stop it betraying me and going to him. His eyes blinked open and stared up at me. At first in confusion, but then a smile split his face.  
  
"Good morning, Detective."  
  
"How's your head?" I asked.  
  
"No complaints so far. Was that a request?" My smile was weaker than a baby’s handshake.  
  
"I've been out. Walking."  
  
"You went to see the body?" He sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees. A defensive gesture.  
  
"No body to see, Kurt."   
  
"But--there has to be!"  
  
"There were traces of blood. Signs of a struggle. Your cardboard was there. Your wallet and corpse had gone walking."  
  
"So, that means I'm in the clear? It's all okay?"  
  
"Use your brain, Kurt. Not if they decide to re-appear. Hand in hand. The perfect frame job. Who do you think would do this? A friendly undertaker?" I grabbed at my hair, massaging the scalp. "I told you never to come back."  
  
"Because of Jesse? It's been five years, Blaine!"  
  
“And the case is still unsolved. That doesn’t mean you’re in the clear.”  
  
“Well, what about you? You’re not exactly in hiding, are you?”  
  
“I can take care of myself."  
  
"Are you implying that I can't? I can handle myself just fine!"  
  
"This town is all dirty tactics and dirty people. And you're too clean."  
  
"I'm far from clean. You need to rip me down from that pedestal you've perched me on. It's too high and I don't like the view." He chased away his frown and replaced it with a disarming smile. "Blaine. Blaine." He leaned in towards me. "Let me show you how dirty I can be."  
  
"Pretty chipper for a man that killed someone a few hours ago."  
  
The frown was back. It brought anger with it. "I’ve done it before.” And there it was. A flash of pain in his eyes as the image of Jesse St. James’ lifeless body entered our minds. How much had it changed him? Carrying that around.   
  
“Don’t do that,” I whispered, taking his hand into mine. “Don’t make yourself bitter.”  
  
He shook his head and stared into the center of my forehead. “You said in your letters that Karofsky was gone. So where’s the risk?”  
  
“They never found a body, Kurt. Just a car and some empty bottles. He’s not gone. Just lost. And I don’t want you here waiting for that hammer to fall. I don’t want you looking over your shoulder, waiting for the short noise that gives you a long sleep. You got a good gig in Ohio. A home. A family. A life. Why the hell would you risk that?"  
  
"You know why." He gripped my hand and tried to pull me towards him. I held fast.  
  
"Go home, Kurt." I whispered. He didn't answer and I shook my head. "Listen. Whoever moved the stiff is probably in cahoots with it. I figure they need radio silence. For now. But I can't take the chance they know it was you. I need to go out. You need to stay in. You reading me?"  
  
"You've barely had any sleep!"   
  
"Whose fault is that?" I let go of his hand and stood. "Not that I'm saying it was all bad--" I allowed myself a wry grin.   
  
He pushed down the covers slowly, and swung his long legs out of the bed. He saw my eyes involuntarily lower and smiled. A smile of fondness rather than enticement. Padding across the floor, he pulled the curtains open, releasing the sunlight into the room. I darted back as a harsh stream hit my eyes and shaded them with my palm.   
  
“Could you be late?” he asked as he shifted a hand through the vinyls on the cabinet. “You have Mercedes record! She sent me this, too.” He looked back at me with a grin on his face. “I could—“  
  
“No.” I read his thoughts. “You can’t go see her. This isn’t a vacation, Kurt,” I sighed. “There’s food in the fridge. I think. Don’t go out, you hear me?” I tore myself away from the image framed by light.  
  
“Blaine, you’re limping.” His head tilted and his lips twisted sideways . "Have you hurt yourself?”  
  
"I have to go." I put on my hat and turned to him. "I'm needed on set."  
  


* * *

  
  
I watched from the sidelines as Santana played out her Oscar reel. Wildly, she beat her fists against the chest of a thin, scrawny man who was as tall as a tree and twice as wooden. Overcome with oak lust, she dropped into his branches and allowed herself to be kissed. She'd be picking out the splinters in her lips for weeks.   
  
"Good, isn't she?" A slim satisfied Joe in a tightly cut suit that was more than my pay check in a year appeared at my side. His skin was royally flushed and his thick grey speckled hair was neatly combed over his skull. His grin tickled his ear lobes affectionately. They were old pals.  
  
"You have no idea."   
  
"Name's Remmington. I'm the producer of this little feature." He gestured around himself like we stood in paradise itself, pride betrayed on his face. “And you are?”  
  
"Blaine Anderson.”  
  
His pleasant grin wavered like idle fingers through water and a spark of recognition entered his eyes. "Wait? Have we met before?"  
  
"Anderson!" Santana called, rushing over and kissing my cheek wetly.  
  
"Is that the dreamboat you're supposed to be stealing?" I nodded back at the co-star that was busy being berated by an impossibly small man. Probably the director.  
  
"Warner Brothers." She rolled her eyes. "Have you met Blaine, Mr. Remmington?"  
  
“Say, you have some look.” Remmington reached a hand out and held me by the jaw. “I could work with this.”  
  
“Thank you, but I don’t act. Not for money, anyway.”  
  
"Now come on, Blaine. Think about it. Why not submit to a little screen test? You could be big. Maybe the next Ladd? Maybe the next Cagney?"  
  
"Maybe the next Slim Summerville."  
  
"Ha! Maybe! Here, have my card. Call me if you want to talk about this. Day or night."  
  
I took it without a glance. "Listen, Brother, mind if I borrow your gal here?" I shoved the card into my pocket and raised my eyebrows.  
  
"Sure, sure. And give me a call, Mr. Anderson. I think we'd work well together." He shot me a strangely sad expression and with a nod at Santana walked away.  
  
"Blaine?" Santana knew trouble when she saw it.  
  
"You knew, didn't you? Why didn't you tell me he was back?" I hissed. "A damn heads up at the least."  
  
"The kid? You've seen him?" She smiled slow. “I thought you looked tired.”  
  
"That be on the account of me rooting through alleys for bodies."   
  
"What?" She blanched white as a Geisha and I filled her in. Her pretty face growing paler with each word and her lips becoming a thin, brutal line. "But who would be following you? You think--" The name arrived and waited for introduction.  
  
"Karofsky? Good chance it's not connected and Kurt just wandered into something fresh. But I'm not ruling it out.”  
  
"That's absurd. He hasn’t been heard from in years. And that’s not the kind of bulk that just disappears.”  
  
"I’m a man who believes in what he can see. And I haven’t seen an obit in the Hearst rags just yet.”   
  
"This paranoia of yours is getting dull, Anderson." We both jumped as a loud crash came from the set. The director had turned over a camera and was shaking the handler by his belt hooks. "That's Dakota Stanley," she sighed. "He makes John Ford look like a sweetheart."  
  
"Seems a pleasant sort. I'd like to go fishing with him. He talk to you like that?"  
  
"When do I let  _any_  man talk to me like that?"   
  
"That explains your divorced status, Frail. Here," I took her hand and dropped my apartment key into her waiting palm. "When you are free, I need you to go babysit my pet killer."  
  
"Keys to the mansion. Does this mean we are going steady?"  
  
"Baby, I couldn't handle you."  
  
" _That_  explains my divorced status. What about you? Where will you be?"  
  
"I'm going to be escorting April Rhodes around town. I'm a lucky guy. Where is she?"  
  
"Sobbing into her skirts. ? He wasn't happy with her rushes. Balled her out in front of everyone. He's a regular charmer."  
  
"I'm becoming quite enamoured." I looked towards April's dressing room. "Maybe I should go console her. I'm known for my sensitivity."  
  
"Go easy on the kid. She plays it tough but she's nothing but treacle. She reminds me of me when I was her age."   
  
"I remember you at that age. Should I go in there with a chaperone?"  
  
"Oh, Blaine. You never even had me at full beam." She gave me a quick peck on the cheek. "See you later."  
  
I walked past Stanley and nodded. He glared. He spat on the ground. It just missed my foot. "Say, do you have a rod?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"A fishing rod." I grinned big and nodded in earnest. He flapped a tiny hand at me and turned his back. I was crushed.  
  
I gave April's door three raps and waited. And waited. The gal was slower than Christmas in July. I gave three more raps.  
  
"Just a minute, will ya! Christ sake!" A harsh Southern accent brayed back. I blinked. I shook my head and read the name on the door again.  
  
"Ms. Rhodes? It's Blaine." Silence for a moment and the sound of rustling and clanging.   
  
"I'll be out momentarily!" An airy angel called. Ms. Rhodes was back in residence.  
  
The door swung open. "May I come in, Ms. Rhodes."  
  
"I told you to call me April, Blaine," she danced to the words and giggled.  
  
"May I come in,  _April_?” I saw irritation swiftly masked with sweet confusion. She stepped back and motioned into the room. I stepped in and my shoulder brushed her breasts. She had the space. She didn't use it.  
  
"Please sit down." The words fluttered out. She smiled. It didn't' meet her eyes. And something in them made me stop. I was certain I’d seen them before. But where? Three months ago I would have known. I was sure of it. "I'm finished for the day."  
  
"I heard you had a time of it."   
  
She grimaced and crushed a little fist against her thigh. "I can handle him." The accent was creeping in and I saw her bat it away like mice in her pantry. Her back straightened and her eyes closed, a shudder seemed to pass through her. "Enough about him. You're here now. Isn't that nice?"  
  
I told her it was nice.  
  
"Yes. And it's all going to get better." A screwball, alright. She went to the dressing table and stared at her face. It was a lovely face. She unplugged the decanter, poured the glass and filled that lovely face with a shot of whiskey. She didn't offer me any. I wasn't thirsty but I like the chance to refuse a drink.  
  
"You're very attractive, Blaine," she said, as if this had just dawned on her. I noticed the red in her cheeks, her slight wavering. The faraway look in her eyes. This wasn't her first sniff of the day.  
  
"My parents did their best." She ambled towards me, her step slower than ever. The tick of the clock beat her on every pad. Finally reaching my knees she stared down at me. I got the feeling the position suited her fine.   
  
"Very, very attractive--" She murmured. Climbing onto my lap she tittered coquettishly. "Isn't this more comfortable?" Her arms encircled around my neck and she pressed her face to mine. Her eyes were closed. Her lips pursed.  
  
"You’re driving in the wrong lane, honey." I bucked my legs and she fell to the floor in an undignified heap.  
  
"Ya sonuva bitch!" she snapped. "Who do you think ya are?" The accent crept back into her words. The South will rise again.  
  
"I'm the man you hired to do a job. Nothing more."  
  
"Maybe  _I_  am the job?" Her face stiffened and her lips came together hard.  
  
"You're better than that, kid. You just don't know it yet." I held out a hand and she slapped it away. Pulling herself up, she stalked back to the decanter, this time swigging straight from the bottle.   
  
"Don't take it to heart none, April. It's not you."  
  
"You--you got a girl or something?" The simper teased back into her voice and she turned her large watery eyes towards me.  
  
"Or something."  
  
"That's nice. People should have people." She turned her head slowly and stared past my shoulder. "I think I want to go home. I'm tired."   
  
"Okay, okay." I stood up and walked towards her. I linked her arm and patted her chin upward.  
  
"I knew I must have had some effect."   
  
"I don't follow?"  
  
"You're shaking."   
  
I dropped my hand and shoved it in my pocket. "Let's go."  
  
We walked out the door arm in arm. For once her pace was above stop. She leaned into me, her head almost resting on my lung.  
  
"Where are you going?" Stanley blared. She jumped from me so fast the room almost spun.   
  
"I'm done for the day! You said--"  
  
"You go when I tell you to go!" he yelled back. "And no male friends to set!"   
  
"It's okay. I'm not a friend," I sneered at him politely.  
  
"Is that supposed to be funny?" He stared up at me with eyes that were eager to meet on the back of his head.   
  
"No, palooka. But you are." We began to move away but he blocked us with a snatch for her arm . I slapped it away. "Let's blame this on artistic temperament. But anymore and I'm liable to get sore . You understand?"  
  
He understood. He was two feet tall and he understood. He made a leap, grabbed me by the collar and introduced me to his face. We didn’t get along famously.  
  
"Dakota! No!" April called out from back up in the sky. It was kind of touching.   
  
His meat crushers squeezed around my neck. I squirmed and I gagged. My hands got into my jacket and out came the little Colt. I was released with a grunt.  
  
"Tough guy, hey? Got a gun. Real man. Real tough." He tried to smile, remembered his face was tighter than a vole in a sock, and settled on a sneer.  
  
"Real smart. You try that again and I'll show you how this toy works."  
  
"Alright, alright. I hear ya. Just get out of here the both of you. I want you on set tomorrow. I don't want this clown with you. Got me?" April nodded and moved behind me. He fainted toward me and I jutted my chin. "Ballsy little bastard, aren't you?."  
  
"My parents did their best.”  
  
"I'm sorry about him," she whispered, as we left him behind snarling at our backs. "He isn't nice."  
  
"Few in this town are."  
  
"You are. In your own strange little way."  
  
"Don't believe it, doll. I'm here for the check. That's all." She smiled and I knew she didn't believe a word. "Let's get you home."  
  
"Will you keep me safe?" I stiffened. That wasn’t one of my talents. "Protect me?"  
  
"I will.” I hoped it wasn’t a lie.  
  
Arms linked we left the set, got into my car, drove out of the lot and disappeared into the Hollywood hills.


	4. Chapter 4

  
I whistled as we reached her place. B Movies with Lancaster were paying well. Guarded by an imposing gate, the pathway in led to a pretty, white and narrow bungalow with a high roof and large leaded front windows. Ivy covered its face, but it was welcome ivy, like freckles on the head cheerleader. I could picture April at the window, a heroine in her very own reel.  
  
"It doesn't take him long. It never does. I usually see him near the corner of the gate." She pointed, her eyebrows knitted together in thought. "When we have met he never says anything. I signed a cheesecake shot for him once and he just shoved it into my hand. And stared and stared."   
  
"And for how long does he stare and stare?"  
  
"I don't know. I used to check. But then I'd get so spooked that I'd force myself to stop looking. But knowing he was there. Waiting. It didn't help."  
  
"You got a gun?" She nodded. "From now on you and that gun are Abbot and Costello. You go everywhere together."  
  
"You think I'm in danger?" She tasted the words and liked the sensation. She licked her bottom lip.  
  
"I think it pays to be over zealous."  
  
"You make me feel so safe." She fluttered her eyelashes and dropped feather touches onto my arm, but there was no passion in any of it. No real interest. Just discarded lines from old scripts.  
  
"Go in now. I'll be watching." She didn't move. Just looked at me with a strange soft smile. "How can I miss you, if you never leave?"  
  
"You're a funny one, Blaine," she said. "But I like you." She leaned across the seat and kissed the bone in my cheek.  
  
Opening the car door, she swung her small legs out, looking fearfully to the place her admirer was so fond of. Rising, she smoothed her face over and began the walk up to her house. It was a short walk. She made it look long. Halfway, she turned and waggled her fingers at me. I waggled back. She blew a kiss. I let it drop. She turned again, walked the rest of the way and went through her front door.  
  
Twenty minutes passed. Thirty. Forty. I smoked three cigarettes. I looked at the sky and thought about the blue waiting in my bed. I rubbed at my temple that had begun to ache and I drummed out a Cole Porter beat on my dashboard. I saw a figure at the gate. He didn't hide. He didn't try.   
  
He was a Rabbi, alright. At least that's the story he was telling. Something about his get up was strange, Frances Farmer strange. With a quick glance around he approached the gate. Wrapping his hands around the bar, he stared up at the bungalow mournfully. I decided it was high time I introduced myself.  
  
I got out and closed the door quietly, so as not to alert him and made my way over. With my gun in my jacket pocket and my hand on the gun.   
  
"Can I help you, partner?" He shook his head and turned from me. I walked round him. He kept turning. “What’s your hurry? I just want to talk.”  
  
“No. No. Not today,” he said in a stage whisper, still spinning like a pin wheel in a hurricane. I grabbed his shoulder and ended the merry go round. He didn't care for the action, I was getting too fresh and I hadn't even bought him roses or introduced him to my mother. He slugged me and I went down like a fine steak. I’d never been hit by a Holy man before. It was one for the books. He was running before my face hit gravel.   
  
I jumped up, put my head back on and gave chase. As we passed bewildered neighbours, I sensed rather than saw the shoulders shrugging, the eyes rolling, the unspoken  _“Hollywood’s full of them._ ” I couldn’t help but agree.  
  
Tired of the sidewalk, he made a jump to the right into a gap in the wall. So did I, falling out into a garden that hadn’t seen affection for a long time. He ran on ahead and the overgrown weeds covered him like an eager lover . I followed, ignoring the brambles scratching at my skin and stealing parts for themselves as I made my way through them. I yelled and he ignored. I made a grab for his black fabric but I grabbed air and frustration.  
  
Dizziness landed and tried to take me for a dance but I slapped at its hand and kept on running. I had my Rabbi cornered as the house loomed over us- triumphant in its own decay. It either stood empty or was filled with Poe characters. I didn't care for it much. And I wasn't happy he had brought me here.  
  
At its side, steps led up high to a door. He went for them and I followed as close as hair. My body began to falter but I pushed it on. Clinging to the handrail as nausea dragged me down. He reached the top and saw the closed door. For a moment he hesitated, his face set in a frown. He could break in but what would that do? I was a certified dinner guest.  
  
I removed the gun from my jacket. My hand was steady. Too bad about the rest of me. I said: "Easy there." He wasn't easy. He was as skittish as Seabiscuit in a glue factory. His eyes darted round him for something to use that could trump a Colt. He chose a flowerpot. It was the wrong choice. "I just want to talk to you. Don't lose your head." I said, ducking, as the object fanned my face.  
  
I closed in and his face folded as he realised his only option was over the side. Or forward. I shook my head and held out a calming hand. The effect perhaps marred by the roscoe in the other. I blinked away the newest dizzy spell, as I took another step up towards him. A pain began to pound in my head and the Rabbi became two men but I pressed on. Until I was close enough to pat his skull cap affectionately. I swayed before him, blinking him back into one. "Easy, Brother."  
  
He didn't look like he had it in him but he did. Amazing what a cornered man can do. He grabbed the railings behind him and kicked out with both feet. His size tens hit my shoulders and I involuntarily took a step back. But you can't walk on air. I snatched forward and grabbed at the beard in panic. I was right. It  _was_  fake. I'd have settled for being wrong, though, as I tottered backwards down the stairs like a rolled up newspaper with the whiskers clutched between my fingers. I kissed every step.  
  
With a grunt my back met the floor and they didn’t hit it off. Winded, I tried to waggle my fingers like I had at April but no dice. They were empty, too. I'd lost the gun in the fall. That made me sad. It was a lovely gun. I knew I needed to get up but I didn't want to move. I could have lain there until Veronica Lake won the Oscar.   
  
"Blaine?" He bent over me, a shadow covering his face, but I knew him, alright. He knelt at my side and touched the ground next to my head. As he inspected it closely I saw his red tipped fingers glisten. No big loss.  
  
"You," I tried to speak, but my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth. I tried to push away, but my body was glued to the cement.   
  
"I'm sorry, Shamus." I saw him darting around like a nervous kitten. He picked up a small slab of stone and I knew his intention. I was tired, the world was spinning and this man was about to give me a way out. He held it high above his head clenched in his fist. Too bad. He'd never get that movie, now.   
  
"Hey! Hey! What you doing over there? This is private property." A voice like chewed gravel yelled out. "Git outta here! Git!" My Rabbi dropped his weapon and turned tail. I closed my eyes. I'd seen enough.  
  


*

  
  
My front door loomed before me and I giggled. It was all so comical. A regular Marx Brother movie and I was the punchline. The large woman at my side jangled my body like keys and grimaced at me.   
  
“Settle down, fellow,” she said and I laughed some more.  
  
The door swung open and Santana stood before us, her pretty eyes widening in shock. Her face ran the gauntlet of emotions as she took in me, the shaking, laughing, bleeding detective, and my saviour, the caretaker of Frankenstein’s mansion.  
  
"Blaine!" Santana ran towards me and grabbed at my face. "You're hurt." She touched the wound gingerly. Cringing when I winced. "Who are you?"  
  
"Name’s Beiste, Miss," The woman holding me up said. "Your chap had a hit on the noggin. By a none too friendly type." She moved past her, dragging me into the room.   
  
I gestured towards the couch and she sweetly threw me like a like a rock into a cavern. I dropped into the cushions with a chuckle. I looked over at Beiste, wringing her hat in her hands. Trying to look smaller in the already small room.  
  
"Where was he? Blaine, who did this?" Santana was at my side, my hand warm in hers. Beiste coughed and looked away. Probably wishing she’d left me back there in the weeds.   
  
"You'll get no sense out of him, Miss. He just keeps laughing like a simpleton and going on about a Rabbi and someone named Kurt."  
  
Kurt! Where was he? I tried to get up but Santana pushed me back gently.   
  
"Easy, Baby. We need to get that looked at. Why didn't you take him to a hospital?"  
  
"He insisted I didn't, Miss. Said it was police business and to get him to his apartment. Said there would be something in it for me." She chewed her lips and rubbed a dirty hand on her thigh.   
  
"I see. I see. You risked him bleeding to death for--" She threw the words away and snatched her bag up from the table. Opening her purse she shoved some notes into her hands. "There. You've delivered."  
  
"Oh, I couldn't poss--"  
  
"And yet you will. Let’s not play  _that_  charade.”   
  
“Just trying to get by. That’s all. There’s no need to be snooty about it.” With another sneer, she turned and headed back the way she came. “Wait? Don’t I know you?” Beiste asked, pausing at the door.   
  
“No one knows me.” Santana’s face was as kind as stone and with a nod, the woman left. Slamming the door in tribute. She wasted no time in checking me over, her hands flying over my frame. Something about her urgency set me off giggling again and I was nearly rolling in the aisles by the time Kurt came hurrying out.  
  
“What is it? I heard--Blaine! What happened?” He blurred his way towards me and suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore. It was a goddamn tragedy. His thumb and index finger took hold of my chin and turned me towards his face. “Hell, Blaine. This is a mess! You need this looked at.”  
  
“So? Look at it. No one’s stopping you,” I said in a slurred voice. He gave me a puzzled look and scooted higher, fingers gingerly touching the wound on my head.  
  
“It doesn’t look too deep—“ He looked to Santana. “What happened?”  
  
“I think he ran into April’s Rabbi. Ran into him hard,” she said.   
  
“I would have caught him just fine. I just got a bit dizzy, is all.” I saw Kurt’s eyebrows go up and hurriedly covered my words. “Stop fussing. I’m fine. Let me sleep it off.”  
  
“You need to go to a hosp--” Kurt began.  
  
“Damn the hospital! I’m not going anywhere!” I shouted and they both jumped. I saw their eyes roam over me, both pairs stopping on my hand.  
  
“Blaine. Why were you dizzy? Was this before or after your fall?” Kurt pressed.  
  
“After.” The answer was too quick to be the truth and we both knew it. I lie better when my head isn’t bleeding all over my shirt.  
  
“Why won’t you let us take you to the hospital?”  
  
I opened my mouth. I closed my mouth. I didn’t say anything.  
  
“Santana? Could you fetch me some supplies from the bathroom? If we clean it up we can see if it needs stitches.” She nodded and got up slowly, reluctantly. I felt hit by a burst of intense love for her. So strong and so pure I felt like crying for a moment. Crying and burying my face in her hair. I let the feeling go. “If you need stitches, Blaine,” Kurt continued. “You need to go. You’re not just some Adrian suit I can just sew up.”  
  
He took my hand with both of his and stilled it. Meeting his stare I saw something I didn't like developing in all that blue. Suspicion.   
  
"Blaine. Close your eyes." I sighed and did as he asked. I heard rustling and then I felt him press an object into my left hand closing my fingers over it softly. "Tell me what this is." I knew this gig.   
  
"Tell  _yourself_  what it is." I opened my eyes and tried to tear my hand back.  
  
"I'm just checking for a head injury. Everyone knows this trick, something we got from the movies. You can understand that, can’t you?" He kept his fingers tight over mine. Holding them captured."We can do this here or I can drag you to the hospital?"  
  
"Fine. Fine. It's a coin." I rubbed it against my palm, my thumb running over the ridges of Washington’s profile. "A quarter. Examination over.”  
  
"Now, the other." His voice was as soft as rain in spring. "Close your eyes."  
  
"Kurt." I had no place to go but I tried anyway. "This is ridiculous."  
  
"Please. For me." I steeled my face into blankness and held out my hand, shutting my lids against the attentiveness of his stare. A beat. "Now, tell me what you feel."  
  
"Impatient. Bored. Impatient."  
  
"Blaine.--"  
  
With a sigh I repeated what I had done with the coin. "Okay, it's the damn quarter again! There, your wet nurse act is--" My eyes sprang open and the words died as I looked down into my right palm. At his gold ring that lay in the middle.   
  
"You proposing?" I tried to smile, to pass it as a joke, but the game was up. Never kid a kidder.   
  
“Do you ever smell strange things?” His tone was light. Like a conversation on whether it may rain. “My mother used to swear she could smell burning.”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
"How long?" His voice, still soft, shimmered with dangerous edges. "How long have you known? I could do more crude tests if you want? I could have you declaring silk was sandpaper. But I'd rather you just admit it. Do you think I'm stupid? I’ve seen this before, Blaine. The shakes in your hand, the way you rub your temple all the time, the limp, your aversion to direct light. Did I miss any?"  
  
"I've had a bad fall--"  
  
"Stop it! Just stop it. Three months, wasn't it? That's how long you've known? That’s why you stopped writing! Why the hell didn't you tell me?"  
  
"Tell you what?" Santana walked up behind him, a towel over her arm and bowl of water in hand. Her face was full of concern. Sweetness on a face that was often so harsh. I couldn't look at his. "What didn't you tell him?"  
  
"I didn't tell him--" I gave a dry cough and wondered how the words would feel once they were free. "I didn't tell him that I'm dying."


	5. Chapter 5

Santana stepped back as if pushed by an invisible hand, the water sloshing over the side and falling to the floor. I watched it turn the carpet a darker shade. It looked like blood.  
  
"That--That isn't funny, Anderson," she laughed in a nervous titter, like a branch against a window pane in the depths of the night.  
  
"It wasn't meant to be."   
  
She looked at the bowl like she had never seen it before and then placed it on the floor at Kurt's side, cursing slightly as the hot water made contact with her fingertips. Delicately, she passed Kurt the towel. She didn't look at me.  
  
"How?" she asked simply, as Kurt began to dab roughly at the cut.   
  
"Brain tumour." Kurt spoke up in a bored tone. "In the posterior fossa, I'd guess. That’s where my mother had it.”  
  
It stung. "Yes. Got it one. One of those fancy handles doctors use to keep the rest of us in the dark."   
  
"You're a fine one to talk about keeping people in the dark," he muttered. "So? What was the prognosis? How long?" He could have been asking the latest baseball results for all the flippancy in the remark.  
  
"Six months? Nine? He couldn't say. More testing."  
  
"But medicine is so advanced these days! Can't they remove it?" Santana's voice cracked. A slow shudder started at her throat and passed over her whole body. It hurt to watch. It hurt a lot.  
  
"He wasn't hopeful on my chances. He wanted to do all sorts of tests. Said there was a chance that they could get it out but there wouldn't be much worth saving."  
  
"How long ago since you saw him?" Kurt asked. The bowl of water shone in a deep red, as deep as the centre of a garnet stone.  
  
"Three months."  
  
"Three months? You didn't go to anyone else? You didn't get a second opinion?" He stared at me with eyes that were perfectly empty.  
  
"I don't need a quack to tell me I'm clocking out early."  
  
His nostrils quivered a little and his breath hitched. He let it go in a heavy burst. "You aren't even going to  _try_  to fight?"  
  
"The bell hasn't rung on the last one, yet."  
  
"Karofsky? You'd risk your life to get even with a dead man?"   
  
"I need to be in control. You wouldn't understand."  
  
"I understand alright. I understand plenty. You're a selfish son of a bitch. That's what I understand." He threw the rag in the dish, his face full of barely contained fury. And I thought I knew all his faces. "I can’t even look at you right now." He rose and I made a desperate grab for his hand. He shook me off and walked away.   
  
"Anderson--" Santana began but she had nowhere to go. Sitting down next to me, she clasped the hand Kurt had rejected. Watched it shake against her soft palm. Why didn't you tell anyone?" I shrugged and her lips disappeared into a thin, bloodless line. "We had a right to know, Blaine.  _He_  had a right to know. You’re always mooning over him and boring the rest of us. And this is how you show your love?"  
  
"He has it made in Ohio. Why the hell would I want him to come back here and play nanny?"   
  
"Because he loves you. You can't go around making everyone’s decisions for them!"  
  
"Don't worry, I won't for much longer."   
  
She sucked in the air through her teeth so hard it whistled. "Stop that! Don't say such things!"  
  
I said I was sorry.   
  
"Tell him to stay," she pleaded so softly I barely heard. But I did.   
  
I told her no.  
  
"You owe him that. It's the least--"  
  
"The least I can do? Let him watch me fade out ? Watch me get weaker and weaker? Watch me--" I stopped and wired my jaw.   
  
"Die? Yes, I think you can give him that. Do you know how much more it would have hurt if you had just skipped out?" She clutched at her skirt, knuckles whitening in effort. "Life is too damn hard. Just as hard as death. And it's too hard to be alone. Trust me, I know.”  
  
I edged my mouth to the side. “Who was he? This man of yours?”  
  
“Wha—What?” Her eyes didn’t want to meet mine but they ran all the way over anyway.   
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“The one that got away? I know that look. I wear it pretty well.”  
  
“This isn’t about me, Anderson. Hell, it’s barely about you. That boy loves you. God knows why. You’re short and you whine too much, but he does. And if you love him than you owe him the rest of you. No matter how little there is left." We watched my hand dance to an unknown beat in silence. Gently, she placed it in my lap. "Look, you two need to talk. I should be going over the script rewrites and--"  
  
"Remmington," I said, mind clearing.  
  
"What? What about him?"  
  
"He's our Rabbi."  
  
"I don't understand. He did this to you?"  
  
"He did some of it. I did the rest myself." I tried to rise but the room began to waver like steam. I sat back down. "I need you to keep away from that set."  
  
"But why? Why would he do this? Follow April?"   
  
"I don't know. But the girl needs to be warned. He is dangerous. And he knows he has been made. He's liable to panic." I shouldn't have come here. For many reasons.  
  
"I'll warn April. You're going to sit right here and get that head of yours looked at. Come see me tomorrow." I opened my mouth to protest but I knew that look on her face. She was as unmovable as the Hoover Dam. She leaned forward, her lips pressing to my cheek. "Let someone look after you for once, Blaine."  
  
I opened my mouth but I didn't trust myself to speak. I gave a nod and she got it. Like she always got it.  
  
"Give my regards to Garbo in there.” She turned from me and walked elegantly to the door. She gave me a backward glance, like she was painting me with watercolours in her mind. And then she left.  
  
I popped a cigarette in my mouth and watched the fire burn down the wood of the match. I blew it out. I went looking for Kurt.  
  
Pushing open the bedroom door slowly, the wood making a quiet whisper against the carpet, I made my way into the bedroom. He didn't hear me. He sat with his head in his hands, fingers entwined in his short hair as far as they could go. His shoulders rocked gently, like a losing bookies receipt in the wind.  
  
"Kurt."  
  
He looked up and wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket in an almost violent gesture. I tried to think what the Blaine he once knew would do in a situation like this. I stood there.  
  
"It's not fair," he said, his voice so wooden I could almost trace the whorls in the bark. "I should have come back sooner."  
  
"You didn't know." I walked in a little further and rested my hips against my desk.  
  
"I know. Because you didn't tell me."  
  
I let that ride.  
  
He stood up and walked past me, his face grim and taut. I made to grab at his arm, but he brushed me off. “No.”  
  
I dropped down onto the bed as I watched him enter the bathroom. Thoughts raced around my head but one screamed out from the others.  _It’s not fair_. Over and over until the very sound of it wedged itself in my throat begging for release. I held it back. I began to choke.  
  
"I just don’t understand, Blaine! Help me understand,” he snapped, re-entering the room with his face twisted in anger. I turned away in case he looked into my eyes and knew. He knew. “Blaine?” He dropped to his knees and grabbed my thighs, running his hands up and down like he was calming a skittish animal. “Come back to me, Blaine. Come back to me.” He repeated it like a mantra and I clutched at his hands tightly. I locked onto his eyes and followed him down. The air was cleaner down here. I was back. I was safe. I was with him.  
  
“Sorry,” I muttered, as he sat next to me on the bed. “That happens sometimes.”  
  
Satisfied I was calm, he ignored me and stared up into my eyes. He was beautiful. I could stare at him forever. Smiling softly, he pulled at a strand of my hair, covering the wound. My hair didn't like being told what to do and sprung back into place.  
  
"Do you think I’ll dance again?"  
  
"Shut up," he muttered, placing a hand on my shoulder. It felt like iron. "You can't go running all over town in this condition. You need to rest. You need to sleep. Everything that happened today was because of your ridiculous pride."  
  
"I have a case--"  
  
"Hang the damn case!" He looked startled at his own outburst, but not regretful. "Going the way you are, you’ll be in the ground before the month is out.”  
  
“Kurt!” I hissed.  
  
“Please, Blaine.” Tears lit up his eyes. “We could see more doctors? We could go away, find somewhere that is advanced on this. Please! Fight. For me?”  
  
“Don’t ask me to do that. You know I have to finish what I-“  
  
“You’re nothing but a coward! Okay, let’s play it your way. In this condition how do you expect to solve anything? How will you prove to the world you’re so smart? So tough? If you’re busy shaking and vomiting in the gutter?”  
  
"Have some mercy. You know that’s not all I care about," I said softly.  
  
His eyes turned mean. "Oh? Is that supposed to placate me? The tough guy throws me a flowery sentence and all is forgiven?"  
  
"Kurt, I just thought--"  
  
"I know what you thought! I'm not a damn Faberge egg, Blaine!"   
  
"You can't stay here. I don't  _want_  you to stay here."  
  
"And now we are back to that method, are we? Do you think I’m so naïve that I can’t see the lay? I'm not just going to breeze out because you're in a rush to go roughly into that good night."  
  
"What about the body? That slipped your mind nice and easy like.” I'd left my gun in Hollywood. Cruelty was my only weapon.   
  
"He got what he had coming. So did Jesse. So did Karofsky."   
  
That rattled me. “Kurt? There’s something else.” My eyes found my lap and I watched his hands tighten around my own. They squeezed and I felt life flow through me. “It’s about Karofsky. The night he—the night he disappeared? I saw him.”  
  
I chanced a glance up and his brows were knitted together, his lips pressed tight. He gave a nod for me to continue.  
  
“After you skipped town I threw myself into work. I took every job I could get my hands on. Anything to get you from my mind. I did a side project, too. I went after Karofsky.”  
  
“But you said—“  
  
“I know. I know that you thought we had a truce. I guess we did. And we both cared about you. But I still saw him as dangerous. He could have given you away at anytime. No matter what he was still a cheap hood.” I sighed, wanting to stop but needing to carry on. The memories had been burning in my mind for four years. “He carried on the same as before. Vice, drink and drugs. His usual games and I tried to take him down each time, but—every time I got near he’d let loose that smile and—He had too much on you, Kurt. I had to back off and I hated myself for it.”  
  
“I’m sorry.” He managed to sound haughty and sincere at once. “I didn’t mean to be such a bother.”  
  
“Stop that. I’m just trying to be honest.” I rubbed my thumbs over his knuckles, gently. “So this goes on for about a year, until one night,  _that night_ , he comes to my door. Drunk. And in tears.”  
  
Kurt gave a snort and then looked shamed. “Sorry, sorry. I just wasn’t expecting that.”  
  
“No? Well hold on to your hat.” I looked away then. I couldn’t see those eyes turn on me. It would be a far more painful death. “I let him in. And we talked. We talked about Jesse, we talked about murder and we talked about you. “I smiled fondly for a moment and then let it curl up and die. “We talked about him. He was in a lot of pain, Kurt. He was confused and angry. I tried to comfort him and—“ Kurt dropped my hands.  
  
“Tell me you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t, right now.”  
  
“I didn’t.” Relief poured into his face with anger as its moat. “But I  _nearly_  did.”  
  
“Why?” One word. Simple. And yet covered in so many layers. “Why, Blaine?”  
  
“I was lonely. And all I wanted was you. But to have you I had to risk losing you. I couldn’t do that. And Karofsky he—I guess he reminded me of you in a way. You being our bond and all. But I stopped it. I pushed him away. Because all I saw when I closed my eyes was the  _real_  you. All I ever see when I close my eyes is you.” Joy flooded my chest as his hands found mine again. Tentative. But there. “I was the last person to ever see him alive.”  
  
“You—you blame yourself? For what he did. This is why you’re so fixated on him. Blaine, you couldn’t have known what he would do!”  
  
“Kurt—“  
  
“No! You are so obsessed with fixing everyone’s problems! With being in control. You never even think about how it affects you. We are getting along just fine without you, Blaine. Let the world turn itself once in awhile.”  
  
“Kurt, will you just—“  
  
“It’s in the past.” He nodded, liking the sound. “It’s all in the past.” His face steeled and for the first time I saw Kurt the man. "I don't have any regrets and nor should you. Only the now matters.” He leaned down, cupped the back of my head and kissed me. It tasted of desperation.   
  
He pushed me back onto the bed, deepening the embrace. Unfastening the buttons, he spread my shirt like a fan, his hands trailing softly over my skin. His nails scraped against my skin and I hissed. I reached a hand towards him and he grabbed me by the wrist, pinning it above me on the bed.   
  
“Let me do this for you, Blaine. If only this.” I nodded. I didn’t understand, but I nodded.  
  
The hands glided down to my flanks, kneading my skin through the material. I lifted my hips up and he got the message. With quick fingers he deftly made short work of my pants and I lay naked before him. He had all the power and it was almost intoxicating.  
  
He lowered his mouth to my neck and nipped at it softly. His mouth travelled. His kiss reached my stomach, my hip, my thigh. He looked up at me as his lips trailed further. His eyes said everything that we could ever hope to say.  
  
When he was deep within me, with his forearms pressed against my shoulders, my back arched and his name burst from lips in an almost yell of pain. I pressed a hand to his chest. In case he was a hallucination brought on by my own betraying mind. He was real. And even if he wasn’t, I’d take the dream. Reality could go to hell.   
  
My hand shook. Of course it shook. It wouldn’t even give me this. With a look of pain Kurt shifted his weight to one arm and gripped it tight. So hard it had no choice but to stop the tremor. He brought it to his face and placed a light kiss on my wrist. Then again, harder, as if he was looking for something. He pressed the wrist to his cheek, expression becoming almost desperate and full of too much pain for someone so lovely.  
  
With a moan of despair I realised what he was after. I pulled him down, bringing his face to the vessels in my neck. Lips to my pulse. He gasped my name against the skin and placed his arm under my hips, thrusting into me harder with every utterance of it.   
  
Warmth pooled in me, unfamiliar, yet welcome. I clung to his frame with everything I had. And then it was over. He curled round me like ribbon round a maypole and the tears ran free.  _I love you_ , he whispered over and over.   
  
I didn’t say it back.  
  


* * *

  
I awoke with a start, my hand snapping to the space at my side. Kurt? I looked at the clock on the bedside cabinet and grimaced. Four hours. It would have to do. The dull light of evening filled the room, caressing the surfaces of the room like a shy lover.   
  
Rubbing my eyes, stretching my arms and opening my mouth in a yawn, I retrieved my dressing gown from the floor. Drawing it around myself as I made my way to living room.  
  
He sat cross legged on the floor, pouring over my April Rhodes folder. He looked up in exasperation as I entered the room. "Blaine, for goodness sake!"  
  
I held up a hand and said: “Blame the sandman. Are those my case notes?" He nodded. "There's not much. Just the preliminaries. Coffee?"  
  
"I'll get it. I'll make you something to eat, as well. Sit down." He smiled almost nervously as we passed each other, and spinning in a cute little twirl, his hands clasped together. "I thought I'd see if I could spot anything that could help you. Fresh pair of eyes and all that,” he called from the kitchen. “This actress? I haven’t heard of her before. Is she new?”  
  
“Well. I guess we can rule  _you_  out as the stalker.” I picked up a discarded newspaper from the floor. My eyes scanned the headlines and I began idly flicking through the pages. As the smell of eggs began to fill the apartment, I told him about her case, her Rabbi and how the man wasn't as keen on me as he was on her. "Is this paper new?" I asked when he was all caught up.   
  
"Yes, I picked it up while you were sleeping." He saw my look and rolled his eyes. "I know. I wasn't supposed to go out, but you had nothing  _in_."  
  
"If you could just listen to me every one in ten maybe we could get somewhere."  
  
Shrugging, he grinned at me coquettishly and begun to hum some Berlin number. I smiled. Despite the long run I couldn’t deny I liked having him here, making me java and looking after me. A life a man can get used to. No matter for how short of a time. I turned to the latest Parson’s column and April Rhodes stared back at me. Her mouth was full and pouting and her eyes filled with false innocence that she must have picked up the first day off the train.  
  
"My client's riding high," I muttered as Kurt dropped down next to me, his thigh rubbing against mine as he placed the coffee and a plate of eggs on the table.  
  
“Here. Eat. You may even develop a habit for it.” His smile faded as he saw the face staring up from the paper. "That's your client?" he gasped in a strangulated kind of way.  
  
"Yes, that’s my gal. I’m thinking of asking her to wear my class ring.”   
  
"Rhodes? Definitely Rhodes?"   
  
"What's the matter? You know her?"  
  
"No, no. Not at all." The lie was clear. "She just looks like someone I used to know. A long time ago." He shrugged, jumped back up and practically ran back into the kitchen.  
  
"Wait--" I began but my phone's shrill ringing cut me off. He answered before I could stop him.  
  
"Blaine Anderson residence," he answered in a high prim voice. He shot me a grin that could peel the skin from a grape. "Yes, he is. Whom may I say is speaking?" His eyes went wide and he mouthed  _"police"_. He handed over the receiver and pressed himself close, his cheek against mine like Ginger Rogers in love.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"This Blaine Anderson?"  
  
"It ain't Truman.”  
  
"Funny guy. You know a Santana Lopez?"  
  
"Doesn't everyone?" I stalled.  
  
"Know  _intimately_." I didn't like the way he said it. I wanted to reach in to the line and strangle him with the cord.   
  
"She's a friend of mine. Yes." I heard voices and then she was on the line.  
  
"Anderson? Is that you?" Santana asked, her voice hoarse and uneven. "You've got to come. It's Remmington."  
  
"What? Are you okay?"  
  
"He's dead, Anderson. I came home and he was in my apartment. But he was already dead, I swear! And there was another body here." Voices barked instructions in the background and I crushed the phone to my ear. "I’m at the police station. Anderson, you have to come. They think it was  _me_. I’ve been arrested for murder!”


	6. Chapter 6

“Say, aren’t you Blaine Anderson?” A hot blonde towered over me, a smug smile on her face, a hand on her hip and the other holding up a pen like a knife.   
  
“That’s right,” I answered, moving to go round her but she sidestepped my entrance to the station. “Miss? I’m in a hurry.”  
  
“For Santana Lopez, no doubt.” She nodded. “I don’t usually cover entertainment, but you both have faces that stick in a girl’s mind.” She giggled. “I admit. I’m a bit of a fan.”  
  
“You may have to wait for that autograph,” I muttered, shooting a glance back at Kurt in the car. “Look Miss--?”  
  
“Holiday. Holly Holiday. Press for the Los Angeles Heart. This autograph of mine. Do you think I’ll be waiting for twenty to twenty-five? Or should I nab it on her way to the chair?”  
  
That froze me. “What do you know?”  
  
“I thought you’d never ask.” She pressed her lips together, her face brimming satisfaction at her every word. They must have tasted like gold in her mouth. “I know you’re Blaine Anderson. I know you used to be blue until you got pushed out after that incident with Artie Abrams. I know you make it your mission to go after every crooked cop in town and I know that they are holding Lopez for a double murder.” She clicked her pen for effect. “Care to fill in the gaps?”  
  
I smiled. I took the pen from her hands and snapped it into two. I handed it back.  
  
“Was that off the record?” she asked, unfazed. Seeing something in my face she took a demure side step. “I’ll let that slide for now, Mr. Anderson. But you know where to find me if you want to talk.”  
  
“Yeah, I think I know which rock to move,” I threw over my shoulder as I entered the station. It was like crawling into a wasps’ nest and making a pass at the queen. I wasn’t wanted. And they weren’t going to be shy about it.  
  
"Hey, look! We have another celebrity in our midst, boys. It's getting to be the Kodak Theatre in here tonight." The desk clerk, puffed out his chest and winked at the others in the lobby, who tittered. He was small. And like all small men, he was mean.  
  
"I want to see Santana Lopez."  
  
"Wanting and getting are very different things,” he said seriously as his colleagues laughed themselves hoarse. Easy to please this gang.  
  
"How about you stand up so I can slap you back down?" I smiled kindly.  
  
"Sweet talking me, Shamus?" He sneered, his hands clasping the edge of the desk and squeezing the wood.  
  
"Listen to me. I want to see Santana Lopez. I want to see her before I have time to blink again. And if I don't then I'm going to high tail it to the nearest news stand and start hollering that America's Sweetheart is being held on trumped up charges. Hell, I don’t even have to go that far. There’s a news-hawk stalking the entrance."   
  
“ _America’s_  Sweetheart?” He cocked a thumb behind him. “ _That_  isn’t America’s anything.”  
  
I took a step forward and breathed down his throat. “Care to repeat that? Nice and loud so the boys here can record your last words?”  
  
He went red and his knuckles went white. "Your girl is guilty of double homicide," he said tightly.   
  
"You think the papers would care?"  
  
"I don't like your manner, dick."  
  
"It's not for sale. Now, get out of here and bring me a real cop. Not someone playing with clothes out of the dress up box."  
  
"Why, you two bit, cheap--"  
  
"That's enough, Israel." The voice came from my side. "You must be Blaine Anderson.” I nodded and looked him over. He was quite the view. Tall and dark and filling his suit like air to a lung. If he had been smiling he'd have been devastating. "Detective Sean Fretthold." He held out a hand and smiled. I was right. It was devastating. We looked at the hand. It got lonely and disappeared. So did the smile."Follow me. I'll show you the dame."  
  
He walked ahead, and I followed. He pushed open the doors and led us into a small off white corridor. The carpets were sticky and they wanted me badly. They clung to my sole on every step. He checked back now and then. His eyes calculating and thoughtful. He wanted my full attention and he had my full attention. He wanted me to smell the foul staleness of urine, to hear the moans and shouts of the other prisoners. To see they’d put the diamond in the garbage pail. This was a lesson in intimidation.  
  
I'd never been an apt student.  
  
"This is it," he said at the last door. I didn't move an eyelash. He jangled the keys and slammed them into the opening. With a clank, the lock sprung and the door eased open. The smell was worse in here. The walls were yellow, peeling, profanity covering their surface. None of it touched her. She sat on the cot, her back straight and her face neutral. She was as still as Mother Liberty. But much lovelier and more real.  
  
"Anderson," Santana offered, like I was a pleasant find on her grocery shop. "It isn't true, of course."  
  
"You think I just stepped off the boat, doll? I know a set up when I see it." I walked passed Fretthold and into the holding cell. "And I see it."  
  
"Ma'am, you must accept that the evidence is pretty strong."  
  
"When do you think you can get me out of here?"   
  
"As soon as you start co-operating, Ma'am, and we..."  
  
"Darling, when I am talking to you, you will know. I will be looking  _down_  at you." Santana gave him a brief uninterested glance and then turned back towards me. "Anderson?"   
  
"Soon. Tell me what happened."  
  
Standing, she crossed the room. With a small hand she tucked away a stray hair behind a delicate ear. I saw Fretthold's eyes follow it feverishly. So he'd fallen. They always do.  
  
"I went home. I wanted to freshen up before I went to see April. To warn her. But when I got there—Remmington was on the couch. He was dead. Before I could even call the police, they were at the door." She stuck out her hands and I took them. The fingers felt as fragile as the wings of a bird, but I knew the iron in them.  
  
"My men found the other body in the bathroom. He'd been dead for longer, I'd say. We are waiting on the lab reports." He eyed our joined hands with a small frown that he didn't know was there. "The second victim was also stabbed."  
  
"The knife?” I asked.  
  
He looked at her quickly and nodded with his eyes downcast. “It was in the apartment.”  
  
“All you folks need is a pretty bow to wrap this in.” I squeezed her fingers. “You sit tight, kid. I’m coming back for you.” I let the hands drop and went to the door.   
  
Her gaze followed me. Her face filled with a trust I couldn’t possibly have earned. She bowed her head and smiled. “Thank you, Anderson.” She sat back down and entwined her fingers over her lap. She looked like she had all the time in the world. If you didn't know her, she looked unafraid. But I knew her.  
  
Fretthold's eyes ran over her frame, committing her to memory as he stepped backwards through the door. I followed him out and stepped back as he locked it up. Straightening and tucking the key away, he looked at me for a moment, a slim finger to his lips. Then he turned on his heel smartly and started away.  
  
"You really think she did this?" I called as I followed him.  
  
"I don't like her for it, no." He stopped and faced the wall. "I'm with you. It's a set up alright. But they've tied my hands. I can hardly let her go on this evidence."  
  
"You have identification on the first stiff?”  
  
“A Dustin Goolsby. Part time bartender and full time heel. He’s been in and out of jail for the past eighteen years for violent assault, robbery and one reported sex attack. Not exactly anyone that is going to have the nation weeping into their java.” Looks like Kurt had done the world a favor. “I can’t for the life of me connect the two. Goolsby was killed with a swift upward motion into the ribs. From the bruises and cuts I’d say he was killed in brawl. Now Remmington? They didn’t leave a man--they left a sieve. No sign of a struggle, he was attacked when he wasn’t expecting it. It was frenzied. And messy.”  
  
“And Santana was as clean as whistle?”  
  
“We estimate the second body was dead for at least an hour. Maybe more. She had time to scrub, Blaine.” He laughed but there was no joy in the sound. “That’s what my superiors will say. But if you ask me, those men were killed in crimes of passion. By different perpetrators.”  
  
“Really? And just what are you and your superiors going to say when the press comes knocking?"  
  
"Celebrity doesn't impress me much, Blaine. Whether they’re famous actresses or infamous detectives. You're all the same to me. I just want to do my job."  
  
"Her being in there isn't your job. It's theirs. The ones who've arranged this. They should be getting a damn pay-check and a company car."  
  
"You don't like the police much, do you?" He looked at me with narrow eyes.   
  
"Can you blame me?" I shrugged. "You know my story. Or, at least, you think you do."  
  
"I guess not. But I'm not like Sam Evans or the others. I'm no one's pet blue. If I close a case, Blaine. It's because I got the right crook. Not because Ben Franklin climbed into my wallet."  
  
I winced at Sam’s name but soldiered on. "You'll forgive me if I don't fall into your strong, manly arms and ask you to make it all better. I can be kind of surly like that."  
  
"Okay, okay." He held up his hands. "Your signal's coming through. Loud and clear. How about we get down to it. What are you holding back?"  
  
"Nothing that comes to mind."  
  
"Do you want me to bring you in? To question you? If you want your girlfriend out of here then you better start talking."  
  
"I'm as much in the dark as you, Brother. But let me out of this dungeon and I'll rub my eyes with clenched fists and see if things brighten up."  
  
He stared at me for a moment and then sighed. "Of course. I should have known. You work alone."  
  
"Only when there is no one else around."  
  
"I'll play it your way. For now. Twenty four hours. If you have nothing then I've got no choice to charge her. I don't want to, Blaine. It stinks to high heaven but if forensics say that the knife matches then they've got me by the balls."   
  
"Lucky forensics," I grinned at his confused expression. "The 911 call? Can you give me anything on that?"  
  
"A woman. She said her piece and hung up without a name." April Rhodes' face swam into my head and paddled away as fast as her small limbs would take her. Just a hunch. Nothing but the tightening of a detective's gut.  
  
"I'll find your killer. But I got conditions. The girl gets moved. That cell was a cheap move and when I blow this open the first people under fire will be your own men."  
  
He nodded and looked shamed. It cheered me. "I can't help people’s attitudes, Blaine. They love to tear people down from the top if they can. It doesn’t help that she is Latina to boot."   
  
"I don’t care about people’s attitudes and I sure as hell don’t care about their prejudices. She deserves respect. You'd be wise to give it." He took a step back, surprised at the snarl in my throat. So was I. "I swear to you. If one hair is out of place when I get back here--"  
  
"I already told you. I'll have her moved. I'll look after her myself. You have my word." He paused as if deciding whether more words were needed. He decided they were. “I know more than you think. I know what they did when they pushed you out the force. Badge talks to badge and it’s not always with pride. I don’t like having that smudge on my town. I don’t like working extra hard just to get the stench of corruption out of my clothes when I had nothing to do with it being there in the first place. Scum like that makes it harder for the rest of us to do our damn jobs.” He realized he was almost shouting and took a deep breath. “You’ve got twenty four hours, Blaine. Because I think you and yours have earned it. From what I hear you were hell of a cop once. That makes you alright in my book.”  
  
I stared at him. Looking for an angle. His face was open and trusting. He meant it, this offering of his. This town hadn't jaded him yet, that was for sure. But he was young. Give it time.   
  
I jerked my head and walked on ahead, with him following like my shadow. Passing through the doors, I eyed the desk sergeant as I went past. He smiled with too many teeth and I considered helping him out on that front.  
  
"Leaving so soon, dick?" he asked sourly. "And we were just getting acquainted.  
  
"I'll leave you a picture for your wallet. If you ask nicely."  
  
"How about you go fry your head" He started around the desk and Fretthold stepped between us.   
  
"Can the flirting, boys. Just get back to work." With a grunt the little guy went back behind his little desk. Fretthold plunged his hands into his pockets and looked across at me.   
  
"Swell guy. You must pinch yourself when you come into to work every morning."  
  
"Your mouth never stops running does it?" He sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "That girl of yours?" He smiled fondly. Softly. "She sure is something, isn't she?"  
  
"More than you can know." I tipped my hat my other hand going to the door. "And Fretthold? She ain't my gal. She’s no one’s gal."   
  


* * *

  
  
"Blaine.” Kurt jumped up as I climbed into the car. "What's going on? How is she?"  
  
"It's your alley cat. They planted him on her. Along with Remmington."  
  
He looked at me sharply. "What? I don't understand."  
  
"We lose a body with a knife in it. One turns up in Santana's apartment. With Remmington’s for company. They're connected. Only explanation. We're dancing to someone’s jig, Kurt. And I don't like it. I don’t know the steps and the pace is too fast."   
  
"I have to go back in," he said in a stilted voice. "I have to tell them it was me."   
  
I grabbed at his sleeve. "Don't be a fool! You going back in there and blabbing your lips off isn't going to help anyone. Not in the long run."  
  
"I can't let her take the rap!"  
  
"She won't. Not if we play it smart. And falling at their feet isn't playing it smart." I started the engine before he could make a heroic leap from the car. "Besides, his body seems to have been a regular game of pass the parcel of late. Any evidence you’ve left behind will have been severely compromised.”  
  
“And the missing wallet?”  
  
He had me there. I let it go. “April Rhodes. You recognized her and we both know it. I want the story."  
  
He opened his mouth as if to protest and then snapped his jaws with an audible click. He nodded. “I  _think_  I do. It’s been awhile. When I knew her, her hair was long. She’s got it short now.” He made a cutting motion to his shoulder. “Her nose and chin are different, too. But the eyes. She can’t change them.” He shook his head and a blush blossomed on his cheeks. “She was at Pavarotti’s. She was one of Shelby’s girls.”  
  
“Right,” I said slowly. “So she turned tricks?” Had I seen her? That night I had gone looking for Kurt? Maybe but the hunch didn’t feel right. Like a book slightly too wide for the shelf. I tapped absently at the wheel with my index finger. A buzzing was beginning in the nape of my neck. “I’m missing something.”  
  
“Blaine--”   
  
“Quiet. Don’t talk.” I rubbed at the ache in my skull. It was like knitting fog. I could almost see it. Ever since that day in the office I’d felt the tug of a memory. I felt a cog begin to turn in my mind. The wheel was dry but it had faith. I pushed at it.  
  
Her eyes. I saw her eyes. Gray. Gray like the rest of her. Empty and staring. Hands on wrists tight enough to bruise. Feigned passion and the clipped sound of whirring. Of a reel spinning.  
  
“I know her,” I whispered. “I know her.” I glanced across and his eyes were trained on me. “Four years ago - maybe five. I got a case. A young girl by the name of Suzy Pepper. She’d headed out west to get her handprints outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre. She got her feet in a whole heap of dutch instead. It wasn't an easy case, but I found her. I think her parents had rather that I hadn't." I looked at my hand on the steering wheel. It was slight, but the tremor was back. "She was holed up in a flat out of her mind on marching powder and whatever else they gave her to keep her smiling. It wasn't a gift, though. They made her pay for it."  
  
"How?"  
  
"Movies. Not exactly Uncle Walt stuff. You catch my drift?"  
  
"It's not exactly a subtle point you're making." He rubbed at his thigh and frowned. "Go on."  
  
"I got the girl out and I got the reels out. The parents got back a fruit loop. They wanted revenge and so did I. It was bigger than just cheap Joes in an apartment trying to make a quick buck. That was some set up they had, and something like that needs funding. But before I could act, someone broke into my place and took the reels. Took half the carpet and the wall fittings, too. Then I got a call from the girl’s parents and the case was off. They were heading back East and wanted to forget what had happened. Something spooked them."  
  
"I see. Where does April Rhodes come into this?"  
  
"Before they got taken I watched them. For research, Kurt." I said at his widening eyes. "Not for kicks. She was in them. I remember--" I tapped my chin. "I remember her eyes. They looked like nothing more could ever touch her. Like she had given all she had to give."  
  
"Poor girl," Kurt murmured. I agreed.  
  
"A girl like that? She's tough. Tough to get away and build a new life right under their eyes. Tough or dumb. I prefer the former. I'm betting they didn't like that. And they used it to their advantage."  
  
"Blackmail."  
  
"Nail on head. And I'm pretty sure I know the hombre in charge.” I took a sharp turn. "You want to know why I won't fight this? This creature in my damn brain?" He nodded, slowly like a man waking from a dream. And not a particularly sweet one. "Because I  _owe_  them. Sam, Santana, April." My voice dropped to the floor. "You."  
  
"No, Blaine--"  
  
"I owe them," I ignored him and gripped the wheel tight in memory. "I made a mistake. I really believed he wanted to change." I laughed. It was bitter and ugly. "That he wanted redemption of all things. I have to put things right, Kurt.”  
  
I looked across to see how all this was landing. He sat staring at me for a moment, pink tongue pressed to the corner of his mouth. He gave a soft whistle and shook his head. "You're a smart man, but you sure don't act like it."  
  
"Careful. I offend easy."  
  
"You could have that thing cut out of you and chase all the vendettas you want! Why the hell are you so stubborn?"  
  
I aimed low. "Your mother? Did they operate?” He pursed his lips and turned away. “I thought so. You know the risks. I could lay down on that table and never get up again. And then he's won. But this way? I get him. I get him. He’s out there, Kurt!"  
  
"What happened wasn’t your fault! You have to stop blaming yourself.” His voice softened. “You fool. You goddamn fool," he said, almost wearily. "And if you die trying? What then?"  
  
"I won't let myself die until I'm ready to die." He turned from me, staring out the window as the streets raced past like forgotten dreams. I thought I saw his shoulders shake. I thought I heard his heart crack. Just a little.  
  
"Fine. Fine." He told the pane. "You play Gary Cooper. Ride into the town and start shooting. But just who are you going to be shooting at? Ghosts? Shadows? Karofsky is dead, Blaine!"  
  
"You're wrong, Kurt. Karofsky isn’t dead." I looked at him. "I know because I helped him fake his own death.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Say something,” I said, as we pulled up outside April’s place, the silence finally getting to me. He hadn’t spoken a word since I had told him what had happened that night. “Anything.”  
  
He turned and cut me with his eyes. His mouth opened and then closed. He shook his head. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Blaine. You helped a monster get away. After what he did to all of us.”  
  
“Karofsky was only St. James' puppet, Kurt. He-“ I stopped the words. They were right but they were also wrong. “He said he wanted out. That he wanted to start again. I believed him.”  
  
“Was this before or  _after_  you nearly took him to bed?”  
  
“After.” My tone was bland. “Hearing him out seemed the least I could do.”  
  
“But you didn’t just hear him out, did you? You went the extra mile. Why? How could you possibly think  _that_  was the answer? Do you realise what you did? The police are no longer looking for him, he is free to come and go as he pleases. He could be anywhere, Blaine!”  
  
“Don’t you think I know that! He just—He just seemed so sincere.” I shook my head, mind retreating to the harbour. To the brief squeeze of his hand before we lay his shoes and jacket on the ground. The look in his eyes that seemed to sigh out loud. The relief. “Karofsky had a lot of debts and a lot of upset people on his hide. The way he was going, he’d be wearing cement slippers by the end of the year. Plus, there were his  _other_  issues.” My cheeks warmed and I looked away from him. “There was nowhere else for him to go. He told me his plan and I guess—I guess I let myself get swept up in it.”   
  
“You let yourself get swept up in being the white knight.” Kurt snapped. “What did you think would happen? That he would suddenly grow a conscience and start writing to the fan pages about Rock Hudson?”   
  
I winced and something in my face caused Kurt’s angry expression to waver and shimmer into sympathy. Small. But there. He reached over and placed his hand on my knee. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”  
  
“It wasn’t my secret to tell, Kurt. By the time that I began to suspect I’d made a mistake, well, I guess it was shame. And I didn’t want to worry you.”  
  
He raised an eyebrow at that but let it go. “What happened after you helped him?”  
  
“Months went by. Years. I heard nothing. I figured he did what he had promised, he had skipped town. I got on with my work and tried to forget about it. All of it. But then my cases began to go round in circles. And they all led back to one name. Karofsky.”  
  
“He lied.”  
  
“No, I don’t think he did. I think he really meant it. That night, at least.” I traced his knuckles with my little finger, marvelling at the fragility. “But he got scared. Scared of trying to be someone else. It was easier to just go back to the person he was before. Except now it was perfect because no one could stop him. You can’t stop a dead man.” I shook my head as bitterness flooded my mouth. “Then it hit me what I had done. I had given him the power. I no longer knew where he was just like the rest of the town. And he still knew about you.”  
  
“You were trying to help, Blaine.” He smiled softly and I wanted to capture the look and put it in a locket. “You are always trying to help. It’s one of the many reasons I love you.”  
  
I coughed and let go of his hand. “I know what I have to do. I have to do what I pretended to do four years ago. I have to stop him.”  
  
“Blaine--”  
  
“You know this is how this is supposed to pan out, Kurt. Look at how many people he has hurt. This is my fault. And if it’s the last thing I do than I want to make up for the mistakes I made.” He opened his mouth to speak but I cut him off. "Open the glove box." I jerked towards it with my chin and he pulled the flap down, feeling inside. "Take it out."  
  
"A Luger?" He turned it over gently in his hands, holding it like the steel scorched, probably remembering what had happened the last time he had held a gun. "You think we really need this?”  
  
"I think April Rhodes isn’t as sweet as she seems. If anything it'll serve as a conversational starter. Put it in your jacket." He did as I said without asking, placing his palms on his knees and kneading the material of his pants.   
  
Kurt licked at his lips. “Blaine, we don’t even know if Karofsky is involved yet. We need to talk—“  
  
“Later. Come on." I opened the door and swung my legs out, ignoring the numbness that had begun to spread. I looked over the car roof at him and he looked back. Something passed through the air between us and caught in my throat. I broke the stare first. “Let’s go sell some cookies.”  
  
I walked round the vehicle and past him. The gate was open and an Austin Metropolitan lay heavy in the driveway. April had company.  
  
"You're dragging your leg, Blaine," he said in a quiet voice as I led the way up the pathway. "Is it causing you pain? Or is the sensation dull?"  
  
"Dull pains in my neck?" I offered, looking back over my shoulder. He rolled his eyes and tried to hide a small smile.  
  
"When my mother was ill we went to lots of people. Specialists, I mean. They couldn’t save her, but maybe, if they just had a look at you?" I snorted. "Don't glare at me like that! There's research going on all the time, Blaine." He grabbed at my arm, stilling me. "We can go see them. Together."  
  
"It may have escaped your attention, my sweet, but I have my plate full at the moment."  
  
"Do you take anything seriously? Say you'll do this for me? When we put this to bed. It's all I ask."   
  
I pushed his arm off and carried on up the path. "And if this thing don't want to sleep?"  
  
He didn’t answer. He stared past me at the house at my back. “Blaine? The door’s ajar.”  
  
One look confirmed his words. I pushed at the wood delicately and nodded at him. He pulled out the Luger and took the lead.   
  
“April?” he called. The laminated flooring squeaked as our shoes kissed the ground. There was no answer, an eerie calm filling every corner of the house. A small sound like a woman’s moan came from the left and we made our way towards it.  
  
We came to a beautiful room with all the trimmings. A grand piano sat waiting for its ivories to be tickled, a bay window waited to have its curtains drawn to reveal the evening light and the earthly remains of one Hollywood director waited to be discovered.  
  
We eased in. It was as empty as the eyes of the dead man at the foot of the couch. What you could see of them. Someone had given the college try to beat his head from his shoulders and into the next state over.   
  
"It's Dakota." I knelt beside him and touched a finger to his neck. "What's left of him anyway. Guess this means the fishing trip is off."  
  
“Whoever did this could still be in the house.” Kurt hissed, his face white. “We need to find April.”  
  
“Whoever did this probably  _is_  still in the house. He’s still warm.” A blood splattered poker lay at the side of his head.  
  
"Blaine," Kurt whispered. I looked up and followed his gaze.  
  
April Rhodes stood in the doorway. Her face was as pale as winter sunlight. Her trembling body was wrapped lovingly in a stylish overcoat that Orry- Kerry must have just whipped up. She looked like she was dressed smartly for a trip out of town. If you ignored the blood stains that covered the fur.   
  
"I didn't mean for that to happen. For any of it." She stared at us. Past us.  
  
"Easy, Sister. Tell us what went down here." I rose slowly, a cautionary hand out. Kurt moved closer to the doorway, the gun held firm.  
  
"They wouldn't leave me alone. They just kept at me. Working on me. I was out." She looked at Kurt with wide globes. "Why didn't they leave me out?"   
  
"Kurt." I shook my head as he lowered the gun, but he ignored me. He moved towards her slowly.  
  
"Why did you do this, April?” he asked, in a gentle voice. “Who wouldn’t leave you alone?”  
  
"They were working on me. Blackmailing me. Remmington and Dakota. They were going nowhere in the movie business until I came along. They just didn't have the talent.” Her teeth gritted. Fire in all that ice. "But I did. I had the talent."  
  
"Let's not say things we can't take back."  
  
"Blaine!" Kurt snapped. He tucked the Luger into his jacket pocket and held up his hands in a calming motion. "Go on, April."  
  
"They saw that. That I was good? That people wanted me. They had that filthy, filthy--" She clenched her little fists and shook the image from her vision. "I was getting big and they knew the studio would listen to me. Would do anything to keep me happy."  
  
"They got you to get them a movie? To break them into Hollywood?" Kurt asked.  
  
"Yes. It wasn't easy. But Santana. She helped the studio relent. She has a pull I don't have. She helped me.”  
  
"How about you tell us how you repaid that kindness?" I spoke up. My eyes on her hands. Empty. But the woman was either in shock or mad. Neither reassured me.  
  
"That wasn't my idea! They made me do it. They didn't like that I had hired you! I told them it was nothing to do with our--arrangement, but you had them scared." She looked to the floor. "Could you please cover him? Death makes me nervous."  
  
"A fear I see you've overcome. How about you tell me how you got a corpse for a rug?"  
  
"The doorbell." She stopped as if the tinkle was sounding right then. "I thought it was you. Hoped. I was wrong."  
  
"Dakota?" Kurt offered.  
  
"He was out of his mind. He kept screaming and shouting. Saying Remmington was dead. That he had done it. Said that he had gotten greedy."  
  
"So he cut off his food supply? As well as his air."  
  
She looked at me blankly. "I don't know. I don't know!” She grabbed at her left wrist tight and let go. She left behind a bracelet of white. "I was scared and he kept shaking me and slapping me around. Calling me vile names. Saying I'd got them into this. That I had to pay."  
  
"And then what happened?” Kurt broached. Taking another step.  
  
"He came at me. He came at me and I picked up the poker. I swung. He stopped coming." She began to tremble wildly, her hands running through her short, blonde hair, streaking it with red like the sky at dawn.   
  
Kurt approached her and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. She looked down at the blood on her body, as if surprised to see it.  
  
For a moment no one spoke. Dakota was especially quiet.  
  
"April," I sighed. "You know I'm going to have to take you in."  
  
She nodded and bit at her knuckle. "I've been bad?"  
  
Kurt turned her towards him, his finger cupping her chin up towards him. "No jury would ever convict you. You were defending yourself against a killer."  
  
A tilt of the head and expression almost flowed into her face. "Have we met?"  
  
He shook his head. "I'd remember meeting April Rhodes."  
  
She smiled weakly and tears began to flow, fat and fast like keg down a hill. He took her into his arms as her body shook and shivered. He looked at me over her head, his eyes filled with pity. I looked away.  
  
"Don't, Kurt. You know we have to. Santana? Remember?" He nodded sadly and let her go, rubbing away a trail of liquid from her cheekbone.  
  
I stepped forward and took her by the elbow, away from his embrace. I drew her to me slowly. "You going to come with me nice?"  
  
She nodded. "I'm tired. I just want them to stop."  
  
"I need you to tell the police what you told us. That Dakota killed Remmington. Do you understand?"  
  
"For goodness sake, Blaine." He shook his head angrily. "Go easy on her."  
  
"Do you understand, April?" I took her by the shoulders and gave a squeeze.   
  
"Yes. Yes." She nodded, childish determination in her voice. "I'll tell them. Santana was always tough, but she showed me more kindness than most in this town.” She touched at my hand on her shoulder. "Oh, Blaine. You're shaking! It'll be alright."  
  
I laughed softly. "Don't worry about me, kid." I looked at Kurt. "I'm going to take her to Fretthold. I don't think hanging around here is going to help her none. I want you to head back to my apartment."  
  
"What? Why can't I come with you?"  
  
"I'm not giving Fretthold a two for one. Go home. Wait for me." I turned to April. "You got a car?" She shook her head. Crouching, I pulled Dakota’s jacket open and searched the pockets. My fingers clutched around some keys and I pulled them out. I pulled my own out of my pocket and replaced them with Dakota’s.  
  
"Here," I said, opening Kurt’s palm and pressing them in. "Take my Sa’ab. Go straight home. You got me?"  
  
“Blaine--”  
  
“You got me, Kurt?”  
  
"I got you.” His fingers brushed against mine softly, like the exhalation of a kitten. "Look after her. Keep her safe." Her words back to me  
  
"You know I can't, Kurt." He nodded sadly and settled on a space over my head. I linked her arm and we turned, her gaze glued to the body.  
  
"I should change. I should freshen up."  
  
"No, honey. That incriminating evidence really brings out your eyes." Kurt glared at me and I softened my voice. "It's okay. You look fine." I said in my best imitation of him. "Come on, Glamour." I gave him a last look. I felt an urge to cross the room and hold him. To chase away the fear in his face. To feel his bones beneath the warmth of his skin. To keep him forever. “I’ll see you later, Kurt.”  
  
Outside, I helped her into the car. She was slow and wooden as a gift for a Trojan. Her eyes stared forward dully. I gave her hand a squeeze and closed the door.   
  
I glanced up at the house before climbing in. At what she was leaving behind. It stared back just as stone faced as she. April didn’t join me. Instead she kept her eyes forward and her hands in her lap. I walked around the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. I followed her lead and ignored Kurt watching me from the step. My eyes ached to see him grow smaller in the rear-view as we drove away, but I fought it.  
  
We didn’t speak as we drove and the minutes melted by. I thought of Karofsky. About throwing the name and seeing if it caught. I had questions and she had answers. But I was too conscious of her body, wound so small it could fit into a pocket. Every proposed sentence was filled with barbs and they stung my tongue. The kid had been through a lot. If she wanted silence, it was the least I could give her. Her life had been filled with enough static noise.  
  
Out of the corner of my eye I saw her limbs unfold and felt her presence fill the tiny car. A laugh escaped her. Throaty and deep and nothing like her usual girlish giggle.  
  
"Men are so stupid," she said in a sugarless voice, as if the thought had only just now occurred to her.  
  
I turned my head and she smiled at me. It was slow and it was cruel.  
  
Almost as cruel as the Luger she held in her sweet little hands.


	8. Chapter 8

"You're a better actress than I thought, doll."  
  
"I'm not your doll, Blaine." She looked the gun over with a pout. "Lovely. I must thank your friend." The South wrapped itself tight around her words. Grateful to be back.  
  
"So, how much of it was an act? How deep does this go?"   
  
"Is this the part where I tell you my plan? And then you overcome me with a paperclip hidden in your teeth or something?" She shook her head with a fond smile. One saved for when the best student in class made an error on his homework. "Take this next left."   
  
"Why not amuse yourself? I'm not asking for the blue prints. I just want to know what the hell is going on.”  
  
"You really are kind of cute, you know? It's a shame you're too obsessed with Santana." She laughed the deep sound again. "That stupid bitch." The words were devoid of any known emotion. She was saying it for saying its sake. "Okay, what the hell. Ask away, beautiful."   
  
I gripped the wheel tight. My heart began to beat in my chest like a tiger in a safe deposit box.  _Played me. Played me all along._  
  
"Okay. Okay. Let’s start with something soft. Remmington?"   
  
"What about him?" An eyebrow arched. It was like a whole new face. "Oh. I see. Yes. Pathetic creature. Thought he was in love with me. And that ridiculous charade as my protector," she laughed. Hard and mean.   
  
"You knew?"   
  
"Of course I knew. The man was hardly Paul Muni. Christ knows what he thought he was doing. It's his own fault he is dead, you know?” She tutted. “If he had just planted the body like we asked."   
  
"Dakota didn't lay a finger on him, did he? Was it you? Or was it Karofsky?"   
  
"Dave? So you know. Well, aren't you clever? I thought you might be. Keep going straight."   
  
"He didn't attack you at all, did he?" I nodded, the bit in my teeth as I followed her direction. "No, it was you, wasn't it? Why? Why did you kill him?"   
  
“The fool confessed. Told me that it was  _him_  that had been following me. I went to Santana’s to make sure everything went smooth and nice. The idiot fell apart. Wanted to take me away. Away from Dave." She sighed. "So, I told him where to go. He got upset. Said he’d go to the police and get Dave away from me that way. That he’d be willing to go to jail for me.”   
  
“And you gave him a stomach full of lead for the thought?”   
  
“I didn’t spend all these years building this life to let some two bit patsy foul it all up.” Her face twisted and I wondered how it had ever been lovely.  
  
“Why hire me to tell you what you already know? What was the grift?”   
  
She licked her pink lips. “Hmm, we wanted to keep an eye on you. And then when your little friend with the little limp wrist showed back up in town we stepped up that watch. Then your little friend got rid of our man. Our watcher.”  
  
“Goolsby. Who was he?”  
  
“Just a cheap heel with expensive tastes. We should have known he couldn’t handle something as complex as being subtle. Your friend did us a favour there. Another thing to thank him for.” She motioned another left with the gun. “Goolsby got close but it wasn’t enough. We--well,  _I_  wanted closer. And Remmington’s stalker routine seemed to fit in nicely. I knew if I went to Santana what her suggestion would be. It was the perfect excuse to climb in to your pocket."   
  
“But why? Why bother with me after all these years?"   
  
She grinned and settled back in the seat. The April who had walked into my office was gone. In her place was a dame as cold and as unforgiving as Chicago in winter. I felt a small tug of loss for the other April. She'd been a nice kid.   
  
"Because you're dying, Blaine. Because you have old grudges. And dying men with old grudges have nothing to lose."   
  
I held my breath and she let hers go in a laugh.   
  
“Yes, we know. Your doctor has debts. Debts that Dave and I have helped with. He gives us certain information. Starlets who have backstreet abortions, leading men who have embarrassing drug habits. Detectives with tumours on the brain. It’s all very useful.”   
  
The revelation fingered at the base of my spine with an ice cold tip. It caressed all the way to my neck and spread across my shoulders. “You bitch. You stone hearted bitch.”  
  
“I expected better of you. I really did," she said sincerely. "We were good to you. We let you alone for four years. Dave wanted to rub you out but I held him back. I protected you.”  
  
"I don't need protection, doll."  
  
"I already told you. I'm not your doll. I'm your guardian angel."  
  
I barked a harsh laugh. "My what?"  
  
"I owed you. If it hadn't been for you, St. James would still be here. Still running this town. But you took them out of the game."  
  
"Not to clear the playing field."  
  
"You're some nickel, Blaine. You may be the only man worth a damn." She leaned across and trailed the gun down the shell of my ear. "I like that. You remind me of me." Her voice softened like butter in heat. "But then you hooked up with her." She backhanded me with the Luger, and I felt skin break in my cheek. I fought to keep control of the car. I fought to ignore the ache in the cut, the throbbing in my head and the dull pain in my leg. I stared ahead at the familiar road in front. She was taking us back to Dakota. I hoped Kurt had already left.   
  
"Blaine! You're bleeding!" She gasped in genuine surprise. And then smiled, soft and forgetful. "I'm sorry. Where was I? Yes. Then afterward? You got rid of all the chumps that followed. That got in Dave' way. You looked out for me."  
  
"I didn't  _know_  you," I whispered.  
  
For a moment confusion flooded her face, but she shook it away. "Don't be a heel. Not when I'm being honest with you. Not when we were making so nice."  
  
I realized with a sinking feeling that for this dame, sanity had jumped ship sometime ago. I thought of the girl in the movie reel whose eyes were void and wondered if they had ever shone with light. This town had its victims. April Rhodes was just one of many. No big loss, I told myself.   
  
I didn’t believe it.  
  
"Okay. You protected me.” This needed to be played carefully. And played right. “I protected you. Where does Karofsky come into this?"  
  
"He used to come to Pavarotti’s. I was his favourite. He was so sweet, Blaine. All he ever wanted to do was talk."  
  
“I’ll bet,” I muttered.  
  
"Compared to the rest he treated me like a queen. We went well together. I made him into what he is and his money gave me the step up I needed." She nodded and the gun bowed its head. I licked my lips. "This is good. It's not how I'd wanted it, I admit. It's not how I planned it. But we can make it work."  
  
The incredulity in my eyes made her own start to narrow. I jumped quick. “Make what work?" The gun overcame its shyness and looked me in the face.   
  
"Us. You. Dave. Me."   
  
I swore and she laughed. It sounded out of place and hurt my head.   
  
"Don't be like that, Blaine. You can't turn this down. We can fix you.  _I_  can fix you." The gun edged forward and gingerly tasted the blood on my cheek. "I can make you better. I have money. We have influence."  
  
"I don't think Karofsky would champion that idea. Do you?"   
  
"He'll do anything for me. He loves me." The roscoe left my face and a relieved breath left my chest.  
  
“Love? Trust me. He doesn’t know a thing about love. Why does he use films with you loving other men to get himself some dough if he loves you so much? I wish I had a daughter I could give away to such a swell guy."   
  
"Why not?" She pulled her feet up on her seat, curling up like a child. Her expression annoyed and irritated. "Something good should come out of it. And anyway, it was  _my_  idea."   
  
"What?” I gave a hiss and stared over at her. “I don’t understand.”  
  
“The films. It started as a sideline.” She laughed bitterly. “What? You don’t think a woman can be in charge of her own body?”  
  
“If that’s how you want to justify been used. Then sure. You’re Susan B Anthony in a pair of Ferragamos.”  
  
She scowled. “Don’t be cute. It paid the bills for awhile but those cads running the show had no class or savvy. So I took over and stepped behind the camera with Dave at my side. Soon enough we had enough green so I could quit Pavarotti’s.” She patted her face. “And treat myself a little.”  
  
I wondered what had made her so hard. What this town had done to drain all the sweetness from her like fruit left out to dry under the California sun.  
  
“You came close to us on that one, I’ll admit. You had Dave worried. Me? Me you just impressed even more.”  
  
I wondered if a perfume had been in the air the day the reels disappeared from my apartment. I let it go. “And the dead men? Remmington and Dakota? You played them. Made them think they were running things. That they held the cards."   
  
“Yes. We found them under a rock and offered them the reel. Dave told them they could squeeze a job out of Hollywood’s next best thing. For the right price. They jumped at the chance.”  
  
“So they paid Karofsky and then blackmailed you?   
  
“And then Karofsky charged them triple for everything they took from me. They were bleeding the studios dry to keep afloat and no one could connect it back to us. It was perfect.”  
  
“Okay. What about Santana? How did you arrange that one?”  
  
“Santana being in the movie was a wild card. We had become casual friends. She said I reminded her of herself at my age.” She scowled in memory. “She said she could see how much this movie meant to me and steamrolled her way in. Eye on the lead, of course. It wasn’t part of the lay.”  
  
“Looks like if it hadn’t been for her then your lay wouldn’t have left the station.”  
  
“I used the resources I had. No matter how cheap.”  
  
I ignored the shot. “How did you even get your mug up there on the screen in the first place?”  
  
“It’s not who you know in the business. It’s  _what_  you know about the people in the business.”  
  
“So you’ve been doing this all over town?” I shook my head. “And Santana? You wanted what she had? Is that it? She pulled herself up out the gutter with brains, class and nails. But, April? You’re not her.”  
  
“Shut up!”  
  
“You dragged down others to get to the top and you’re barely one inch up. It was a dirty climb, and you’re a long way from clean, sweetheart.”  
  
“Stop it!” Her eyes narrowed and she held me low in her regard. “You're ruining it. After everything I've done for you. Everything I have done for  _us_!"  
  
“Us?” I gasped in a strangulated voice. Faraway I was aware that her house loomed up ahead. Cold and as empty as her eyes. I hoped that Kurt had made good on his word and had got the hell out.   
  
“He wanted to kill you. I held him back. All these years. I knew you were special. Your name was written all over the streets and every hood was scared of you. After St. James disappeared everyone knew who was behind it. And you were like a man possessed. You turned this town over. You’re a legend, Blaine.”  
  
I swallowed thickly. “Not to Karofsky.”  
  
“Oh, that’s just Dave’s way. He would never talk about you. No matter how much I pushed, but I knew he thought the same. You’re like  _me_ , Blaine! We need to be together. Think of what we can accomplish! But Santana was in the way. You don’t see that now. Maybe because of that thing in your head? But you will. You’ll see that it’s better this way.”  
  
“April,” I whispered. It sounded like a prayer.  
  
“Don’t you worry none, Blaine. Hey, maybe once we’re all sorted you can even bring that little friend of yours in. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Kurt was it?” She chewed her lip as she thought. I wagered that his sweet face was looming in her mind and sparking recognition down in the gallows of her sub conscious. Her features relaxed as she let it go and relief settled over me. “Pull over here. Outside my gate."  
  
I did as she said. Placing my hands in my lap like a demure ingénue once we were still.  
  
"You're the bogeyman that mobsters tell their kids about, Blaine. They wanted to kill you but my say so kept you- kept the myth- alive. Do as I say and you’ll stay that way." She held out a hand for the keys and I complied.   
  
We got out slowly, watching each other. She swam in and out of my vision. Blurred and heated. I blinked and she stilled.  
  
Coming round my car, I noticed her walk was just as a performance as ever. I hoped that when the time came, she'd kill me faster. "Turn around, Blaine."  
  
The barrel pressed deep into the base of my spine. “Move.” I moved. We walked past her gate and into the clearing where I had chased Remmington through the day before. “I think you remember the way, Blaine?”   
  
"Maybe you should lead? Guide me on with your lily white hand."  
  
"Straggler's get picked off." Her eyes darted the way in command. We walked. She walked. I limped.   
  
A smudge up ahead waved and then came to a dead still. "Hey! This is private property!" Beiste. I was getting quite the team of guardian angels.  
  
"Shut up, dolt. It's me," April snapped.   
  
Beiste squinted and then surprise ran across her face. “You brought  _him_  here?” I looked around the garden. Maybe the gun I lost chasing Remmington was still here. Waiting for me.   
  
"Sharp as ever." She caught my searching and shoved me in the shoulder. As I stumbled, her eyebrows curved at her own strength. Or my weakness. "The steps, Blaine. Do you need help?" I shook my head and dragged my leg to the bottom step.   
  
“Listen, Ma’am. He ain’t going to like this. Not one little bit.”   
  
"It's my call. I'm just as much in charge here as him." She saw Beiste's disbelief and pointed the Luger. "Now help him."  
  
"I'm fine!" I snapped. I was as fine as Helen Keller on a mountain fell.  
  
They ignored me, her strong arm encircling my wrist and pulling me up. April followed at our heels, her own clipping softly against the wooden steps.  
  
"Ma'am?" Beiste said at reaching the top. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Open the goddamn door, Beiste. I won’t ask again.”   
  
Entering, I gagged as the foul air touched my tongue. It made me want to double over and decorate the floor with the contents of my stomach. Beiste seemed to sense this and pushed me away from her roughly. I swallowed over the nausea and rose to my full height. It looked pretty much the same as April’s house. If it had been left to sleep for a couple of decades and the rats were paying the lease.  
  
“Forward, Blaine,” she told me.   
  
We came to another door and Beiste stopped once more. She licked her lips, and played with her fingers, shyly. April didn’t speak. Her eyes said it all. Beiste sighed and raised a hand to the door, rapping loudly. She then pushed against the wood. They led me into the room. Cats with a dying bird.  
  
"What? I'm busy?" Dave Karofsky. I had suspected from the start but a part of me had wanted to be wrong. I wanted to believe he had found that peace. He looked up and saw what his doorway was filled with. His eyes were as wide as a Bentley MKVI, a drink midway to his lips and a pair of beady eyes on the Luger pressed into my side. "What the hell?"   
  
"I didn't have a choice, baby," she pushed the bean shooter further into my ribs. My lungs cringed away and I took the invitation. I moved into the room.   
  
The glass met the desk with enough force to shatter. It settled for sloshing the liquid over the side. A waste of bad whiskey.   
  
"Are you out of your damn mind?" He came round the desk and stared at her with a face as mean as a bag of bees.   
  
"Baby, baby. I was just protecting us! He--"   
  
"We had a damn lay, you stupid ankle!" He took the remaining steps across the room and stopped before he walked through me. "You," he spat.   
  
"So good to see you again," I leered sweetly. You could almost ignore the slur. "I see you've done well for yourself. How much did the dust and damp set you back?"   
  
He smiled fondly. He laughed. He pushed his fist into my gut to see if it could make friends with my spine. Grabbing me by the collar he dragged me towards a rickety chair in front of the desk.   
  
"Sit down, Fairy," he snarled. "Before I put you down." It seemed a fair deal. I sat down. "Keep that gun on him."   
  
"Okay, Dave. Sure," her voice had changed again. Meek and obedient. I wondered how many shades of April there were left to show.  
  
"What the hell is going on through your head, you dumb broad? What happened to Remmington? The police scanners are saying he was found with Goolsby!"   
  
She told him about an unwanted advance. About her tearful defence. About his threats against Karofsky. About the red mist coming down and coming out of the fugue with a dead producer at her feet.   
  
"Just who do you think you're talking to? Can the victim act. What really happened?"   
  
She frowned, a shudder ran through her, and she looked like she was swallowing something rotten. Then it smoothed over real nice. "Just like I said, baby. You know I wouldn't lie to you."   
  
He grunted, crossed his arms and stood over me. "We'll have to kill him now. We should have from the start." He sounded tough. His eyes looked anything but.  
  
"Don't be hasty. He could be valuable," she sounded worried. It warmed my heart. But didn't fix my brain.  
  
"As what? Look at him? He is shaking like a—a---" The simile didn't come and he cursed instead. "We'll have to rub Dakota, too. It's too hot." I looked at her and she looked back. I kept my mouth shut.  
  
"They think it was Lopez. Nothing has changed. If anything they will be more glued to her hide. They won't tie me. They won't tie you."  
  
"They will if this shamus limps out, Frail. You know that. We got to plug all the leaks."   
  
She opened her mouth and I knew Kurt was on her lips. But I'd covered about Dakota. And she was big on favours. The words changed. "I want to keep him! You promised me.”  
  
“I told you what you needed to be told. And now I’m telling you it’s too risky. You want a pet? I’ll get you a dog.”  
  
“You're not looking at the big picture, Dave."  
  
"Oh, I'm looking, alright." He came close and sniffed at the air. I felt a bead of sweat break loose from my brow and make its way down my face. I held my shaking wrist tight enough to bruise. He saw it all and smiled.   
  
"You're in a bad way, Anderson. A bad way indeed. Not so tough now are you?”   
  
"You don't exactly inspire awe yourself," I told him. "Hardly the new life we talked about, is it? Living a lie in a run-down shack with a B movie actress and an aged gardener? Who's your muscle? Shirley Temple?"   
  
He bunched his fists and stood up straight. "This is called playing it smart. Trouble with guys like you is that you wanna make everything a goddamn show tune with the cast of a DeMille picture!”  
  
“What about what we talked about?” His eyes flitted to April and back. “Your new life! You said you wanted out. Hell, you said you wanted redemption.” My voice slowed to an amble and treaded gently. “You asked for my help, Karofsky.”  
  
“And you fell for it.” He lied. “All I wanted was the competitive edge. Goddamn guys like you are as bad as women. You wanted to polish my shoes and send me off to school with a pat to the butt.”  
  
“If I recall correctly it wasn’t me doing the butt patting.” He hissed and I softened my voice. “I know you’re lying. It just got too much, didn’t it? You got scared. You didn’t have what it takes to change who you are. To be who you want to be. But I can still help you, Dave.”  
  
A slow tremble began to lay itself upon his skin and for a moment a liquid seemed to shine in his eyes. He blinked it away. “Quit playing me. I’m no coward and you know nothing about me. This is just business. This is me holding the reins. If you want a job done--"  
  
"I've heard the line."  
  
"So you know? Yeah, you know. All you guys are dumb. There's no iron to guys like you. No backbone."  
  
"Cool it. You're hurting my feelings."  
  
"Getting sore, Shamus? Christ. I should have put the curse on you four years ago. But April here said you'd be useful alive."  
  
"Is that the real reason?” His eyes wandered slowly over my face and then he grabbed them back with a rough snarl.   
  
“He got rid of the competition, Dave," April whispered, gun still pointed but lowered. Three months ago she would never have dared. Three months ago I could walk up stairs without a gardener’s aid.  
  
"Shut up." He didn't even glance her sweet way. "Guys like you. You make me sore. You make me sick to my bone. You know that? Here, I got a gift for you." He turned and started round his desk. Opening the drawer, he fished out a pair of gloves and slipped them on. "Picked it up the other night. It's just darling." He walked across the room and stood in front of an imitation Van Gogh. It was bold and yellow and seemed to scream in my head. He took it down, roughly dropping it to the floor. A safe winked into view. He made the turns and got the hinges creaking. As it sprang open he shot me an ugly look. He couldn't help it. It was the only one he had. Reaching deep inside, he pulled out my present.   
  
Of course.   
  
"You know my favourite thing about this wallet?" he asked, cradling it in his hands like a new born.  
  
"That it matches your belt?"   
  
He frowned and turned to me. "You'd be smart to quit that talk, Fairy." He came close. "Do you see?" He shoved it under my nose.  
  
I looked it over like it was an unpaid library fine. I shifted and sighed. I yawned. He struck me across the face with it.  
  
"May as well add your blood to the mix. It says  _Kurt E Hummel_. All fancy and loopy.” He opened it and his fingers caressed over a picture inside. He didn’t seem to notice. “Guys like you love that sort of guff."   
  
"It's called class. You might want to look it up in a dictionary. Get April to read it out loud for you. I wouldn't want you to tax that brain of yours."  
  
He ignored me. “Inside it has all his pretty little cards.” He picked out a picture of Kurt hugging Hudson in formal dress. With a furtive glance at the others in the room, he stuffed it roughly in his back pocket. “All the pretty identification the blues will need. I’m sure he’d love prison. It’s like a holiday for his sort.”  
  
“This is fascinating but could I deal with April?  
  
He stared and I saw a nerve grind and writhe in his temple. Good.  
  
"Well, she is the one running this? Isn't she?" I glanced sideways and smiled. Her lips twisted shyly and she tucked a stray hair behind her lobe. The gun was nearly hugging the carpet.  
  
"Don't be stupid. It takes a man, a real man, to run an operation like this. This was me. All me." He laughed and looked over at April. "Get that goddamn scowl off your face."  
  
"Boss!" Beiste ran in, her limbs pinwheeling in panic. "The scanner!"  
  
"What? What the hell is it?"  
  
"Her house. They are on their way! It's a swarm."  
  
Karofsky turned towards the woman, his face full of mean and his fingers whitening at the knuckles around the wallet. "Why the hell are they coming here? April? Why the goddamn hell are they coming here?"  
  
"They aren't coming  _here_." Her voice was calm. "Keep your head, Dave. Keep your head and we can--"  
  
"You stupid bitch!” His voice cracked. “You must have left something at Lopez's!" He backhanded her neatly and she landed with sickening smack against the wall. The gun slid from her hands. She didn't feel it slip away from her fingers. She was too full of hurt and wonder.  
  
"You hit me?" She cradled her cheek and stared up at him from the floor. "You've  _never_  hit me!"  
  
He seemed as stunned as she was. He licked his lips and closed off the shock in his face. "You've never done something _this_  stupid before!" He threw the wallet at her feet and picked up the dropped Luger. "We need to kick up dust. We need to scratch this one out and powder. You go your way, I go mine."  
  
"What? You can't mean that?"  
  
"That face is too known. I can't risk it." He wasn't watching her. He was watching me.  
  
"I changed it once! I can do it again!"  
  
"People don’t change. Not really,” he whispered. Then his voice turned to gravel. “I'm being kind, doll. I'm letting you live. Now get up and get gone." He raised the gun. "Time to put out the trash."  
  
"Really? You're going with that?" I shook my head and closed my eyes. I thought of Kurt. I thought of how I should have told him I loved him. Just once. I hoped that they had that kind of blue-green where I was going. Somehow I doubted it. "Let's get it over with."  
  
“Anything you say, Shamus.” I heard him swallow thickly. Twice. The clock ticked and the gun cocked.  
  
I waited for the sound. Instead came the fury.  
  
"You bastard! You bastard!" She was up on him. Her nails tore and her mouth screamed. He tried to push her off with one arm. The gun flying around his fingers like a startled mouse. " _You_  are letting  _me_  live? You?" She screamed as she bit and kicked. He pushed, he cursed.  
  
Beiste stood in the door, her jaw slack and her eyes dull. She was wound up like an eight day clock. Her sturdy legs danced back and forth as she struggled with more than one thought at a time.  
  
I begged my body to cooperate. Just this once. That if it did this one thing then I'd reward it with Kurt. Lots and lots of Kurt. I dived for the wallet. My hungry hands gobbled it up and I flipped onto my back.   
  
Karofsky shot up a cheap fist and April met the carpet. She took most of him with her under her fingernails. "Couldn't play nice could you?" he snarled. "I tried to do right by you. And you bring all this dutch down on me?"  
  
"I gave you all of this. Me!"  
  
"You talk too much. You always did.” He took aim. On the carpet, the shadow of the gun gave a tremble. “Look. Just get out of here. Don’t make me do this!”  
  
“You haven’t got the guts!” she snarled.   
  
“Shut up!” Karofsky snapped back, holding the gun tighter with both hands as if at any moment it would leap from his fingers. “Just shut up!”  
  
April didn’t shut up. “I can’t believe I thought you were a man! You’re no man! You’d be nothing without me. You’re nothing but a pansey who I had to lead by the hand. Nothing but a weak sister.”  
  
“I said shut up!” Karofsky gasped out. “This is your own damn fault, you stupid broad. You did this to yourself!” His fingers found the trigger and I found my moment.  
  
It was a low blow, but I hit high. My foot came up and said hello to the boys between his legs. They didn't greet me back. He oomphed, his back bending and the gun faltering. She was on him like a rash on a sailor.  
  
They fought, their bodies merged. I couldn't tell where one began and the other ended.   
  
Two shots. One target.  
  
Karofsky dropped as hard as granite, his hands to his stomach as if trying to push all that red back in. He rolled across the carpet and stared into my eyes. His breath ghosted across my brow. "Goddamn guys like you."  
  
"Yeah, guys like us," I agreed. "Goddamn guys like us."  
  
The light ebbed out of his eyes, and he stared at nothing in particular.  
  
"Hey, hey, hey!" Beiste shouted out. She blinked furiously and wetted her lips. Her eyes screamed she should move her legs, but her body was deafened by shock. “I never signed up for any of this.” April turned to her.  
  
"April, no," I hissed. In the distance I heard sirens. "It's over."  
  
She looked at me over her shoulder, her profile the sharpest thing in the swimming room. "Nothing is ever really over, Blaine."  
  
Beiste was on the ground before she finished her newest blink.   
  
April turned around and walked towards me. Slow. Slow as the day we had first met. "This wasn't how I planned it," she said in an apologetic voice.  
  
"No." I hugged the wallet to my chest, I stared up at her. She looked sad.   
  
"I should probably go?" She pointed the gun and I stared into dark of the Luger. My thumbs edged over the engraved signature.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I can't take you like this. You'll slow me down." She looked haunted.  
  
"They're near," I warned. She bent at her knees and caressed the cut in my face with a manicured nail. She looked like death.  
  
"Okay," she pressed the barrel to my temple and I closed my eyes. Dimly, I felt the wallet gently batter against my chest where my shaking hand gripped it. Above my heart.   
  
A beat.  
  
And another.  
  
And another.  
  
I opened my eyes. April was gone.


	9. Chapter 9

The room was small and tight. Filled with a smoke that wasn't mine and a tiredness that was. Fretthold sat in front of me, pad in his hand and questions on his face. I shifted in my seat and yawned openly. It had been a long night.  
  
He lit up a smoke and held the pack towards me. I declined. "It's a damn mess," he said. "Five dead and a woman at the center. A famous one at that."  
  
"It's a page turner, alright," I agreed.  
  
"Goolsby, Remmington, Dakota, Karofsky and Beiste. When did she find time to learn her lines?"  
  
"It didn't come up. I was more concerned with the gun nuzzling my face."   
  
He looked at me steadily. "We found some crazy things in her house. April Rhodes was one sick woman. Most of it won't be fit to print in the Hearst papers. Her and Karofsky had dirt on everyone in this town. More than could fill the Grand Canyon."  
  
"Interesting reading?" I asked. Wondering what my file read. Other than "Prognosis Negative."  
  
"No Hemingway. I only skimmed. That was enough. It didn't seem decent to carry on." He was a damn fine Boy Scout. "She also had every newspaper piece that featured your mug."  
  
"She had a crush, I gather. Only natural. I'm kind of dreamy."  
  
"Definitely crazy, then." My brows rose at his joke and he grinned, feeding the ashtray. "You have luck a streak wide, you know that? If we hadn't got that tip off, you could be wired for the dirt nap."  
  
"I carry a rabbit's foot in my pants. It does me okay. Can't say the same for the rabbit."  
  
He laughed. "Any idea on our helpful member of the community? The phone records show they called from April’s house."  
  
"Maybe Dakota made some long distance calls in a final act of revenge?"  
  
"With half a head?" He didn't smile. "He must have figured her out. Heard about Remmington and went to shout the odds. She gave him a mouthful of poker instead. I guess we won't know until we catch up to her. Maybe we'll never know."  
  
"He underestimated her. They all did." I thought for a moment. "Me too."  
  
"And where does Goolsby figure into all of this? They hired him to watch you. But why? And why kill him?"  
  
I shrugged. "Maybe he kept them up all night asking the same questions over and over?"   
  
He let that slide by. "I'd still like to have made the collar. Karofsky? He's been a shadow on this town for years. I'd like to have had justice. Real justice." He shook his head. "You think she's skipped out?"  
  
"There's nothing left for her now. Easy to change your face when you're nobody. Not so easy when you're somebody."  
  
He nodded and looked down at his pad, rifling through the pages. The black had smothered as much white as it could find. "Maybe we should go through this one more time?"  
  
"I've told you everything. More times than I can count. Anymore and I'm going to start charging." I kneaded my face with my hands, fingertips brushing over stubble and sighed. "I've been here all night. I'm tired and hungry and can't take another minute of your concerned, furrowed brow."  
  
Fretthold tapped his pen against the desk and nodded wearily. "Okay. Okay. I hear you. Beat it before I get a second wind." He dropped the pen, sat back in his chair and made a steeple with his fingers. "She was some broad. April?"  
  
"She was what this town made her." I shrugged. "It can make you and it can break you."  
  
"If you let it." His voice was solemn.   
  
"Don't kid yourself, you have a choice," I warned. "You're a good kid. You could be a good cop. Something to get those clowns out there working for something other than the green."  
  
"You mean the red, white and blue?" Cynical and tired. I hoped it wasn't permanent. I hoped it was just the result of spending the night in my sweet company. I shook my head and made for my exit. "Blaine," he stopped me when I reached the door. "What's with the limp?"  
  
I looked down, and for once the reminder didn’t sting. "Brain tumour. It sometimes affects the right side of my body. When I don't rest it."  
  
His face blanched and he sat back in his chair like a bundle of leaves disturbed by an overexcited child. "Oh," he offered. "Oh. I'm sorry, Blaine. Can it be treated?"  
  
I didn't answer. Instead I left the room.  
  
"Blaine!" Santana trilled. She moved fast towards me. It was good to see her. "At last." She frowned on reaching me, a hand brushing at my hair. "You look terrible!"  
  
"Turn down the flattery. I'm too wise to your methods." I looked over her shoulder and swore. Kurt. "What the hell are you doing here?"  
  
His face was pale and drawn. He looked like he had been dipped in white paint and left in the wind. He looked like how I felt. He breathed my name and came slow. A hand reached out and touched at the labels of my jacket. The fingers were startled that the chest beneath didn't waver and fade at their touch.  
  
"I couldn't find you," he said in a voice filled with wonder. "I realized the gun was gone. That she had lifted it. I followed you both there and back. But you weren't in her house. I heard the shots in the distance and I couldn't find you!" He gasped out a strangled horrible sound and Santana did what I couldn't risk. She did what I thought she didn’t have it in her to do. She took him into her arms.   
  
"Hush now. It's over. We're all still standing and it's over," she whispered softly, squeezing him and setting him free.  
  
He nodded and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his palm. He straightened his shoulders and gave a manly sniff that made me smirk. "I made the call from her house. I looked for you. In the house, around the house. I headed back to her car and tried to make out a trail." He smiled bitterly. "I heard the sirens and ducked into the trees." He shook his head and broke our stare.   
  
"You did right," I said.  
  
"Did I? Really? You were out there somewhere. Hurt. And I was hiding in the bushes like a coward--"  
  
"You did it because you knew it was what I wanted," I whispered. His eyes locked onto mine and I knew I'd read him correctly.  
  
"The police began to swarm. That Inspector was there?" He jutted his chin towards the door behind me. "He was sure worried about you. He was at the front leading the charge. Where I should have been." He spat. "Then the shots came. And I--was convinced. I knew!"  
  
"Knew what?"  
  
"That you were dead. And I swear to God, if I'd had a gun or a knife I'd have followed."  
  
I stepped forward and grabbed his arms, my fingers digging into his skin and to the bone. "Don't you say that. Don't you even think that, you damn fool!" I hissed. He stared back at me blankly.  
  
A uniform officer stopped and gave us the eye. Santana's hand pressed to the base of my spine and I let him go. My fingertips sighed as they released him. The cop, appeased, carried on his merry way.  
  
"If you care for me. If you love me. Even a little bit. You'll promise me you won't--" I licked my lips, dry and chipped as the bark of the tree. "Swear to me you won't do something stupid. No matter what."  
  
He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them slow. He nodded. It was enough for now.  
  
"I just sat there for awhile." He continued in that strange flat voice. "I don't know how much time passed from the last shot. It felt like forever." He smiled again, and there was a warmth in it this time. "And then you came out. And you were safe." The last word came out as a breath.  
"Why didn't you stick to that rare good reasoning? Why did you come here?"  
  
"I would have climbed the walls, Blaine. I had to see you. To speak to you. I had to! You're worth the risk." He turned to Santana as if surprised she was there. "Plus someone had to keep Santana company."  
  
She broke her lips and showed her teeth. Her eyes were tired, her shoulders slumped and her hair loose and messy over her shoulders. She'd never been more beautiful.   
  
"You hung around, too?"  
  
"I didn't want to go. Not until I knew you were safe." Her voice lowered. "That you were both safe."  
  
"I guess there's no getting rid of you both." I reached out and gripped her shoulder. It said what I wanted to say and she touched my hand lightly with her fingers. "Thanks, doll."  
  
"So, are we clear? What did he say to you in there?"   
  
"April’s left quite a trail. It's hard to pick out the ones with her sticky fingers on. You're good." I looked towards Kurt. "I don't know about you. The ground's too hot and you're too low." He looked away.  
  
"I just can't believe April would do all this. That she was  _smart_  enough to do this." She shook her head, her dark waves rustling. "I trusted her."  
  
"Don't beat yourself up, babe. She had us all fooled. Including herself."  
  
"Is it wrong that I hope she's okay? Despite all of this?" She laughed. "She had more guts to her than I thought. I guess--" Her voice stalled and her eyes focused behind me. "Inspector."  
  
Fretthold cleared his throat. "Ma'am. Again I would like to express the most sincere--"  
  
"Can it. It's done. It's over." She was nearly sneering. I felt a wave of pity for Fretthold, as his face twisted in embarrassment. And want.   
  
He chewed his lip and gave an abrupt nod. He turned to me. “Blaine? Can I have a quick word?”  
  
“Velocity?” I offered.  
  
He sighed heavily and looked past me, noticing Kurt at my shoulder. His head tilted in query. "Odd about that other body. Isn't it?" The voice had a hook and it made a sweep at the air.  
  
"Sorry?" I stepped to the side slightly, blocking Kurt from view. Santana did likewise.  
  
"Goolsby? I told you my theory. The violence in the homicides of Dakota and Remmington match but--." Fretthold stopped. He saw mine and Santana's involuntary blocking of Kurt. He looked only at him. His hand went to his pocket and removed a small item. I bit back a hiss.  
  
"I saw you earlier. You were pacing the halls." A light switched on in his mind. "Is this you?” He held up the photograph that Karofsky had taken from the wallet. Kurt and Hudson smiled out at us. Lost in happier times.   
  
"It’s mine." I spoke up. My hand aching to stray to the wallet in my jacket. That was coated in Goolsby’s blood. "Karofsky took it from me.”  
  
"Why would he do that?” Fretthold turned over the picture in his fingers and looked us all over. “  
  
“I don’t know.” A live wire started to make its way through my body and I didn't know what I'd do if they tried to take him. It would make headlines. That's all I knew. “How about you head down to the morgue and put it to him?”  
  
"You people have been through a lot," he whispered. Something was moving behind his face. Something hard and painful. He looked like he was fighting it. Fighting it hard.  
  
"You couldn't possibly know." Kurt's voice was cold but the panic in his eyes was hot.  
  
"More than you would think." His face relaxed. You could almost hear the shifting of skin. He coughed and looked at the ceiling. "Goolsby was no dreamboat. And if he was mixed up with Karofsky--" He shrugged. "Maybe he got greedy. Maybe Karofsky had him scratched?"  
  
"Could be anyone. It's a big town filled with small time people," Santana said.  
  
"Anyone at all." Fretthold said. He handed the picture over to me and my fingers gobbled it up. “Here, take this. I don’t want a loose end like this dragging out my investigation.” His pupils left the roof and sought out Kurt and then ran back to me. "Speaking of. I have paperwork. I'll be in touch, Blaine."  
  
"I'm free to go?"  
  
"Free as air. But stay near the phones. We aren't done tying this up." He corrected a tie that was already correct. He looked us all over. Kurt got the longest stare. "Gentlemen." He nodded. And then softer: "Miss Lopez." He walked away, his head bent low and his hands three feet deep into his pockets.  
  
“Miss Lopez?” The sigh of relief had barely hit the air. We turned and looked up at Holly Holliday. “Care to make a statement?”  
  
“Not one you can print,” Santana replied, her eyes widening as she took in the woman before her. Holly spotted the change and smiled slow. A lion circling a wildebeest.  
  
“Are you sure? Talk to me and you can get your story out before Louella does her own spin. And I don’t think any of us deserve all those exclamations and adjective over use.”  
  
Santana watched her, a finger tapping against her Cupid's bow. It was a face filled with thought and dark sins. “You think it will make the front page?”  
  
“With your face?” Holly grinned again. “I think it will get its own paper.”  
  
“There’s a cafe round the corner. Let’s go.”  
  
“I thought you’d never—“ But Santana was already moving, blowing me a kiss and walking away with a flutter of her nails and a twist of her hips. Holly gazed after her for a moment, a little stunned. And then she shot us a wink and followed Santana out.  
  
I gaped and gave a shaky laugh. “Well, that explains why she dragged me to all those Barbara Stankwyck movies.” I finally said with a fond smile. The beaming ached my legs and I took a clumsy step backwards. Kurt grabbed at my elbow and sighed, his breath caressing at the skin above my collar. I leaned into it.  
  
"Here. You're exhausted. Sit down a moment." He manoeuvred me to a bench and pushed me down at the shoulder. He landed next to me, his thigh rubbing against mine.  
  
I watched his face. The concern and the duty. The words clawed at my tongue for purchase but I let them drop. "You have to leave."  
  
He stared back.   
  
"I mean it. April out there. She's seven bricks short of a building site, and she knows about you. When she gets caught--"  
  
"Don't play me, Blaine. We both know she's too smart for that. She'll go low and stay low."  
  
"For now," I said. "And she's not known for her passive nature. When she breaks the surface we'll all know. Fretthold can only crick his neck so far before he has to accept what's in front of him--"  
  
"You got the best piece of evidence out, Blaine. The amount of handling that body has been through? I could stand up, swear I saw J Edgar fleeing the scene and they'd actually get a fingerprint match. I'll take the risk."  
  
"Better to be cautious than caught."  
  
He turned that over in his mind and stared ahead at the passing cops going about their routine. “Okay.” He gave a soft nod. Then another, firmer this time. "Come with me?"  
  
"You've asked that before."  
  
"And this time I'm not going without you."  
  
"Why won't you listen to me? I don't need you here wiping my mouth and rubbing my back. I want you out of this town. Before it drags you down too."  
  
"Because I can help you. I'm not walking away from you so that you can die alone in a god-awful apartment in this goddamn place!"  
  
"It's not that easy--" I began but he cut the sentence in half.  
  
"Yes, it is! It is! It's eggs in coffee. You just won't see it!" Kurt jumped up from the bench in anger, and I followed, a wave of dizziness trying to place me back down. I punched through it.   
  
"When are you going to learn life isn’t like the movies? That I may not get better? That this life you're envisioning may be as lasting as pebbles skimming the water?"  
  
"You're asking me to turn my back on faith. Faith in you. And I can't do that. I want that happy ending. And I'm willing to fight for it!" His voice softened. “I thought you'd want to go out fighting?"  
  
I stared at him. My nails digging into the skin of my palm. I thought it over. It was tempting.  _He_  was tempting.  
  
"And if I did? If I came with you? You'd have me cut up and on every table going." I sighed and looked away. "That's not the way I want to go."  
  
"Death is death. No matter how dignified or sordid the result is the same. Clinging to a William Wyler fade to black is nothing but your damn pride!"  
  
I looked back at him. At the steel in his eyes and the rose in his lips. I stared at the cut of his cheekbones and the curves where his head met his neck. I looked him over good. An uncapped grenade at my feet couldn't have torn my gaze away and I knew I couldn't say goodbye to him. Not again. I'd crawl over shards of broken glass over for him. And I'd crawl into all the damn hospital beds he threw at me. For him.  
  
"Okay," I mouthed.  
  
He asked me to repeat it and I did. Firmer this time. The words bent and dented from something winding its way through them. Hope?  
  
It was worth it for the orchestra that sounded within him. The joy in his face. He made as if to grab me and then remembered the public setting. He settled for clasping my hand into his instead. Warm and overwhelming. It held it strong. It didn't shake.  
  
I looked up into his eyes and wasn't surprised to see the tears. But the ones in my own did surprise me. I blinked them away and gave a dry cough. "Come on, Kurt." I let go of his hand, walked past him, to the station door and out.  
  
On the sidewalk I opened my jacket and pulled out my smokes. It felt like days since they'd touched my lips. I was glad to meet them again. I popped one in my mouth. I looked up at the morning sky, at the red giving away to a pale blue. It was beautiful and I realized with a start how much I wanted to see more.  
  
The doors clanged behind me and Kurt joined me on the street. His knuckles brushing against mine. I looked at him and he looked back. He gave a soft smile.  
  
"Let's go, Blaine." His eyes were a blue that the sky could never touch. No matter how much it tried. They were filled with life and hope. And a future. A future for the both of us.  
  
And it was endless.


	10. Epilogue

_Lima, Ohio 1963._  
  
I circled the rim of the empty glass and watched the clock. Over the hum of the mundane bar conversation I swore I could hear the tock and the tick. A young man across the way smiled at me, a hint of recognition in his eyes. He raised his glass in salute and I turned away. His grin hit the floor faster than a dead man's back.   
  
My fingers tapped against the table in a dull thud. I hoped he’d come. I hoped I still meant something to him.   
  
The door clanged open and I looked up, my heart climbed into my throat and held on tight. He found me quickly, moved to my table and stared down into my face. The last decade swam in those eyes. The current had been strong but he’d held on. Years wrapped around us both tight, and I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding.  
  
Slowly, he sat down opposite me. “How’s the City of Angels?” he asked.  
  
“Devilish. It’s nothing without you, though.” I leaned across the table and grabbed his hand. The man who had grinned earlier, scowled now in distaste. I didn’t care. And I didn’t let go. “You look good.”  
  
“No, I don’t. But I’ve looked worse.” He laughed and sat forward in the chair. “It’s been a long time.”  
  
“Too long,” I agreed. “I should have come to see you sooner.”  
  
“Yes, you should have.” He squeezed my fingers and looked into my face. I was unworthy of the love in it. “But you’re here now. That’s enough”  
  
“Can I get you a drink?” A voice at my elbow said. The bartender.  
  
“A Scotch.” I looked across the table. ““I suppose you are back on the milk?”  
  
He smiled. “A Coke is fine.”  
  
“You won’t be satisfied until you bankrupt every bar going, will you? A Scotch and a Coke for the little lady, please.”   
  
The boy paused a moment. “Didn’t you used to be Santana Lopez?”   
  
I gave the boy a slow streak of my lips. “I never stopped. Now be a dear and bring those drinks.” His own lips parted. A shy question nearing. I raised an eyebrow. “Now, dear?” He hopped.   
  
“You still have them around your little finger, don’t you?”  
  
“It’s the only place to keep an eye on them.”   
  
“Speaking of. How is she?”  
  
“Holly? She’s good.” I smiled. “She’s running that rag now.”  
  
“I knew there was more to her than a pair of legs.”  
  
“Well, there’s those too, of course.” I laughed and touched at my hair self consciously, hoping he hadn’t noticed the grey that had slowly began to creep in. I looked at his. At the speckled touches lightly fingering his hairline. At the small patch where nothing grew and his pink scar still puckered and wound. “And how is  _he_ , Blaine?”  
  
He smiled. “Kurt? He’s perfect.” I saw warmth flood his face and felt it spread across the table and sink into my own chest. “ _We’re_  just perfect, doll.”  
  
Outside, people walked by lost in their own little movies and looking for their own happily ever afters. Night began to fall over the city, the black swallowing the blue whole.   
  
Outside, time sat back and waited. Waited for another dawn.  
  
  


**Cut. Print Reel.**


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